


Organically Grown.

by twistedmiracle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Complete, Gardens & Gardening, Growing Up, M/M, Post - Deathly Hallows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-16
Updated: 2012-06-16
Packaged: 2017-11-07 20:51:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 39,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/435317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedmiracle/pseuds/twistedmiracle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Secretsalex had this HDS-Beltane prompt: “Harry takes great pains to prepare a big event for Beltane because he thinks it's a pureblood tradition. Turns out Draco has never celebrated it in his life and has no idea what Harry's up to.” I loved this prompt. I requested this prompt. And fulfilling it ended up taking 39,000 words! </p><p>Everything has become remarkably weird. Hermione has no career path to speak of, Draco's become fixedly polite, Neville’s all grown up, Snape is everywhere, and Harry keeps trying to impress… <i>Malfoy</i>?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Organically Grown.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Secretsalex](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Secretsalex).



> Secretsalex requested “Things that don't seem like they should be sexy but are.” I have therefore attempted to make things like baking and gardening sexy. Please forgive me! (Unless of course it worked like magic, in which case, leave comments!)

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“Oh Mum, it’s so frustrating.” Hermione tapped a pencil restlessly on her parent’s kitchen table. “Now that the war is over, and I’ve finally completed my last year of Hogwarts, I have no idea what to do with myself! I need a project, or a … a quest. Something! I have these terribly vague ideas about healing, reconciliation, but I’ve not the slightest idea how to go forward. I’m at such loose ends. It’s awful!”

“I know, love.” Louise Granger sighed quietly and sipped her tea. “Are there truly no universities for witches? It just seems so odd…. I know you would be aware of one anywhere in the UK, but what about the larger world? I remember how amazed you were after the Quidditch World Cup. That letter you wrote us, so full of awe at all the magical folk you’d seen from all over the globe.”

Hermione’s mum patted her hand sadly. They both knew that Hermione’s letter after the Cup had been largely devoid of reality and that she’d shielded her parents from a tremendous number of frightening facts over the years. Many things had finally been revealed – and cried over – when she’d fetched them from Australia.

Pushing away the bad memory, Hermione wiped away a tear and took a deep breath before answering. “I asked the headmistress, Mum. She genuinely seemed slightly _baffled_ at the idea that I might wish for any more broad education after Hogwarts.” Hermione rolled her eyes briefly to the ceiling, reliving the frustration. “As though I learned so much with that madman coming after Harry the whole time I was there. When I think about how often Professor Dumbledore cancelled our exams!”

Hermione’s mother clucked quietly, then sipped her tea again, pushing the biscuit plate toward her daughter.

“There’s plenty of post-Hogwarts education available, but it’s all … it’s basically trade schools. Auror training, broom or wand-making apprenticeships, correspondence courses for loads of terribly specific professions, things like that. No law school, either. Which explains why Harry didn’t get a lawyer when he got called in front of the Wizengamot, obviously, but the point is that there’s no study for the sake of just… exploring. Nothing past Hogwarts, and they won’t let me go back. Not again.”

Hermione couldn’t help sighing, but she knew her mother understood. She might be a dentist, and married to a dentist no less, but the Doctors Granger had met at dental school as older students, after Dad had joined the Army (which had sent him to dental school) and Mum had finished her A-levels and traveled Europe for a few years as a private secretary to a lady business entrepreneur. They both told bedtime stories from those years that were better than any fairy book or Mother Goose rhyme.

Hermione had been raised to believe down to her bones that if you followed your dreams they would lead you to a career you would love. There was no need to search for a job path, that would open naturally to anyone who worked hard and applied herself to any and all interesting, challenging courses of study. Problem was, the obvious job path for one Hermione Granger, brainiac of the Golden Trio, was Auror: an idea she sadly found abhorrent; or Researcher: a nonexistent idea – at least in the wizarding world.

Potentially even worse, as the internet and computing had begun to increasingly change her parents’ world, Hermione found herself shocked at the inadequacy of magic in regards to research, learning, and books. Why, most magical books had no _index_! Many had no Table of Contents! And forget finding anything like a magically computerized card catalog. It was positively demoralizing.

The first time she’d used a search engine it had felt almost more magical than wand magic. And the irony was, there was no wand magic like it. If Hermione had any ability whatsoever with Charms creation she’d find a rich patron and just become the wizarding world’s librarian. Sadly, a head for recalling spells and facts did not equate with a hand for creating new spells. Hermione had spent a full fortnight coming to this miserable conclusion in her mum and dad’s basement. She could come up with a huge stack of nice Latinate sounding words, and wave her wand however she liked, but nothing useful ever happened. It had been a humbling, infuriating experience.

But she was hardly ready to give up, and surely her wonderful mum could help? This wasn’t a problem to be solved with magic, but with cleverness. So no one was a better choice for guidance than Mum and Dad. Right?

Mum nibbled a biscuit and looked thoughtful. “It’s hard for me to know if anything I might come up with could possibly work for you, love, but you knew that before you asked, so…” she nibbled the biscuit again, then looked at it. Then she put the half-biscuit down and stood up, walking over to the kitchen worktop and riffling through the copy of the _Guardian_ she found there. “I’m terrible about throwing old papers away,” Mum muttered quietly, then grabbed the whole stack and returned to the table with it.

Both women moved their teacups away from the stack of paper and Hermione sat up straighter, waiting.

“I actually have been wondering… there’s a problem that’s going to be extremely difficult for the scientists to solve. Primarily because it’s sort of globally interconnected now, and because they actually sort of _caused_ it, to be honest.”

Hermione allowed her mouth to open. “What?”

Her mother gave a wry half smile. “You’ve been so caught up in the problems of your magical world, love. I think the problems of my… excuse me, I mean the _non_ -Magical world have been passing you by. Such a disadvantage of Hogwarts. I think your understanding of science and technology hasn’t advanced since shortly before you turned twelve!”

Hermione shrugged a bit helplessly. It was true, but other than attend a Muggle university – something she was probably even less prepared for than she might have realized, especially considering what her mother had just said – what could she do about it other than talk to her parents?

“I keep reading these articles,” Mum began, “that are essentially about…” she paused, apparently searching for the right phrase. “Food safety. It seems that in an attempt to make a great deal more food, to take care of all the starving millions – a most worthy goal, truly – we’ve been poisoning ourselves with pesticides and possibly even destroying the food supply altogether, with these…” she flipped through the papers and pages for a moment, then stopped at an article, pointing at it and looking up at Hermione. “Genetically modified crops. The _Guardian_ just started talking about this situation quite recently, and I’ve looked about a little on the internet for more information. It’s terribly alarming, truthfully. I wonder if magic might be able to solve what science has wrought?” Louise Granger looked rather a bit pleased with herself. “I should think it would be a perfect ‘quest’ for you. Who but a Muggleborn witch would even know about such a Muggle problem, hm?” She reached across the table and took up the rest of her biscuit, clearly now waiting for Hermione’s response.

Instead of speaking, Hermione turned the newspapers around and began scanning the pages, looking for the words ‘pesticide’ and ‘genetically modified’ in headlines. What she would do for a word search charm! She found one useful looking article, scanned through it, then found a second from a previous paper. She scanned it, then read it through with more care. “Mum, I think I…” she said, then shrugged and looked down at the paper again, running a finger over the some of the words. Then she looked up and smiled. “I think I need a ride to the library.”

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To be polite, even though the place was almost empty, she stood and waved when she saw him enter the Costa Coffee. She was relieved that he’d meant the owl agreeing to meet her. She’d never seen him look so out of place. It wasn’t even his clothes (though she had worried what a Pureblood would wear in the Muggle world, but a magical gathering spot hadn’t seemed safe for either of them). He wore all black and blended in more than adequately. The problem was the pinched, slightly frightened look on his face. He saw her diffident wave and turned toward her table. He raised his eyebrow when he saw that she’d purchased him a large cup of hot tea, but he gestured politely for her to sit and then sat himself. He put his hands on the table and waited; she couldn’t tell if it was patiently or impatiently.

“Malfoy,” Hermione began. “Thank you so much for agreeing to meet with me.”

“I was intrigued,” he allowed, but made no move to touch his drink or continue the conversation.

“Yes, I… well, I’m glad. Because I have a proposal I’d like to make and I hope you will consider it. That’s Earl Grey, by the way. I brought a bit of milk if you want, and also a slice of lemon.” She pointed. “I hope that was an acceptable guess?” She sipped at her own latte and waited for him to speak.

“Earl Grey is fine,” he said; then seemed to force himself to continue. “That was thoughtful of you. Thank you.” He dipped his head infinitesimally, which was pleasant enough, but Hermione found that her insides actually did warm a bit when he moved to add the milk and take a sip of the beverage. It really had been stupidly hard to decide what to get him.

“You are very welcome,” she said as politely as she could. “I expect you’d like more details on my idea, so let me get right to that, shall I?”

He seemed surprised for a heartbeat, then nodded again, more visibly this time.

“Well,” she began. She took a deep breath and a moment to hope she could convince him to work with her, and that he actually had all the resources she thought he did. Not quite able to look him in the eye, she began to talk to a space just in front of his left ear. “I contacted you, specifically, for a few reasons. First of all, I believe you were the best potions student in our year. I think Headmaster Snape favoured you and Professor Slughorn undervalued you, and I know we got very similar marks overall on our OWLs and N.E.W.T.s, but I do think you have an innate understanding of potions ingredients and theory that surpasses mine, and I need someone capable of innovation. I think you might be perfect.”

She stopped just long enough to check his face and saw that his emotional mask, even now poorly affixed, had broken enough to let her see clear surprise and pleasure on his pointy face. She offered him a smile and he tried to return it. Then, suddenly nervous and feeling twitchy, she launched back into her proposal. “I also heard a rumour that you’d begun a correspondence course to complete a potions mastery. Is that true?”

Malfoy narrowed his eyes. “It is true. Where did you hear that?”

Hermione couldn’t help releasing a small laugh. “In the Hogwarts library. You were talking with Zabini and Parkinson, and I was very close to your table, only on the other side of a shelf full of books about the goblin wars. You were all trying to figure out how to… er….” she paused, not sure how to be both honest and diplomatic.

Malfoy raised an eyebrow. “Allow me?”

“Of course,” Hermione agreed, wondering if he remembered the particular conversation, or if he and his Hogwarts friends had discussed this idea so many times that he was sure he knew what she meant.

“I imagine we were trying to determine how we could make our way in a world that sees us as the opposite of what it did when we started Hogwarts. We were wondering if we even had options left that allowed us to remain here in our own country. Even Blaise, who could probably call Italy home if he chose, doesn’t want to leave Great Britain. But after the articles in the _Daily Prophet_ , and the Howlers, and my… my own and my parents’ sentencings….”

“You weren’t sure what options were still worth pursuing? Especially after the way so many students and even professors treated you and your friends last year.”

Malfoy nodded and took a long sip of his tea. “Everyone was on eggshells last year,” he finally suggested diplomatically, and Hermione sighed.

“Overhearing that conversation had quite an effect on me, Malfoy. It made me want to work toward reconciliation, toward what Muggles would probably call a ‘healing.’ I haven’t been part of our mutual world my whole life, but I’m certainly committed to it now.” She sipped her latte and considered what to say next. “It might surprise you to learn that I can’t really give up the magical world and return to the Muggle one. Not as a professional, that is. My Muggle education stopped at age eleven. The kinds of positions I would likely have pursued if I weren’t a witch require so much preparation… well, I’ll point out that my mother and father didn’t become practicing dentists until they were twenty-six and twenty-seven years old.”

Malfoy raised an eyebrow and put down his tea. “I was under the impression that the expected Muggle lifespan was noticeably shorter than the wizard’s. Why would Muggles postpone their career?”

Malfoy paused and Hermione inhaled slowly, trying to determine how to answer him, when he answered his own question. “Oh! They must use that time to have children? And once their heirs are in school, they apply themselves to their career? Living so briefly, they become parents as young as possible.” Malfoy’s expression reflected confidence that his idea was fabulous and brilliant, so Hermione politely waited for him to swallow his tea before she contradicted him.

“That would be logical, but no. I don’t know that I can explain it logically, except of course that Muggles aren’t living their lives in relation to what is expected of wizards. The Muggles just have their own systems and make their own choices, quite unaware of the way wizards prefer to do things. Different Muggles make different choices, too. My parents are a bit unusual in that respect, I can admit. It’s only that they’re the ones I know best. As for how quickly people of varied life expectations jump into parenthood and career, well. I actually find the discrepancy there rather baffling myself.”

She politely avoided saying that, actually, it was the opposite issue that baffled her: why did such long-lived people have children so young most of the time, and then have so few? But they’d been beating around the small talk for far too long. She hoped they could discuss business soon.

Malfoy looked a bit mollified as she explained that it didn’t make sense to her either. “So,” he tried. “All that aside, the relevant issue here is that you couldn’t be a Muggle again, you lack the _education_.” The word came out sounding ironic but Hermione decided to ignore that. Tone of voice wasn’t the same thing as a spoken insult, and she was the one who’d set up this meeting. And, heaven forfend, the one who wanted to ‘hire’ Malfoy and work with him closely, possibly for a year or three. Who knew how long this research project would take? If they could even navigate their way toward an achievable goal, let alone actual achievements.

“But what,” Malfoy continued slowly, clearly thinking it all through, “is stopping you from pursuing some sort of incredible career as a witch?”

“Simple,” Hermione sighed. “There’s no path I particularly want to follow.”

Malfoy looked stunned for a long moment, until he covered it by sipping his tea. “You don’t wish to be an Auror?”

“Not in the least,” she admitted. “Neither do Harry and Ron. And tell me, what on earth else can you imagine any of us three doing? Just walking into the Ministry makes my skin crawl. I might have liked to practice law, were there any such profession here…. I feel like Hogwarts hasn’t prepared me for anything; and worse, like there’s nothing I can think of that I can imagine wanting to do. Unless I invent something new. That’s where you come in.”

“I’m intrigued,” Malfoy said in a voice dry enough to irritate skin. Yet his facial expression was polite, and Hermione really wanted his help, so she took a deep breath and ignored the attitude, concentrating on the words by themselves.

“Good,” she answered, as though she’d seen nothing to indicate any nuance. “I’d hoped you would be.”

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“Severus,” Draco began. The requested moniker still felt rude in his mouth. He paced nervously through the laboratory the professor had helped him set up. They were in a large room his parents were happy to spare. “It’s the strangest thing. I can hardly believe I’ve agreed to it. And yet… it’s probably the best thing to happen since my parents and I realized we’d all three outlived the Dark Lord.”

“Yes,” Headmaster Snape rasped. His voice was still ugly and he spoke even less often than he had during the war. It made Malfoy feel a need to fill the empty air between them. Which in turn made him feel juvenile and ill-controlled, but he couldn’t seem to stay quiet. Not around Headmaster Snape.

“Granger gave me all the guidance she could. Then she and her _boys_ purchased ingredients, books, subscriptions to innumerable Muggle newspapers here and abroad, and other such tools. Luckily we don’t need funding for space. She thinks that’s going to help a lot. She’s living with her parents near London, as am I with my own here in the Manor, and the other two are living in some house Potter inherited. I am sure it is much too small for a real potions laboratory but it has more than enough space for everything else she says they… I mean _we_ need.”

He paused to look out the window, seeing nothing in the familiar landscape. “My father was thrilled when I came home and told him Granger’s proposal. He says it doesn’t matter if I succeed, though that would be brilliant, obviously. Just working with those three, on a project that’s primarily to benefit the Muggles? He says nothing he could have found for me could have accomplished so much toward rehabilitating our family name.”

Headmaster Snape nodded seriously and stepped closer to Draco, putting one hand on Draco's left shoulder. Draco tried not to stiffen. His parents were very pleased to have someone of Snape’s stature about, and invited him to the Manor frequently, usually two or three times a week. Draco knew it was equally his responsibility to make the former headmaster welcome in their home. He felt sure that now that he was an adult it would take no time at all before he felt something other than childish and off-balance in front of Headmaster Snape. Any day now, it had to happen.

For his part Headmaster Snape was blatantly uncomfortable in public – the mixture of insincere adulation and honest horror was clearly too much, even for him. He accepted every one of the Malfoy’s invitations quickly and wordlessly, as though when he wasn’t at the manor he was sitting in front of an open Floo, awaiting their invitation to dinner. He spent almost as much time in Draco's company as Draco did himself, or so it sometimes felt. And when the man touched him – on the shoulder, on the hand – Draco always had to force himself not to step away just slightly. Soon Headmaster Snape would feel like a friend. Soon Headmaster Snape would be ‘Severus’ inside Draco's head, not just verbalized, to be polite and do as Headmaster Snape had asked. Soon. Mum was sure of it as well.

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Ron put his empty tea cup on the table. “I don’t like it, Harry. She’s spending way too much time with that ferret. What if she fancies him?”

“Well, I don’t think she does, but what I don’t understand is why you aren’t really… you know… competing.”

“What’re you on about?”

Harry paused; exhaled. “You never ask her out on dates, Ron.”

“Of course I do! I invite her over here for dinner two or three times a week! And to Sunday at Mum and Dad’s every week! And just last week she refused to go to a Cannons game with me.” Ron looked at the floor and frowned.

“I dunno, Ron. Those don’t sound like, y’know. Dates.”

“I can’t afford anything fancy, Harry. I’m not like you.”

Harry felt his face warm slightly. He hated making Ron feel like a charity case. But he knew Hermione wanted things Ron wasn’t even trying to give her, and he had to find a way to explain it to Ron. Hermione had asked him to because she felt she couldn’t. She kept telling Harry instead. “The girl doesn’t tell the boy how to be a boyfriend, Harry. I’m not experienced, but even I am pretty sure of that part.”

“I’m not suggesting you treat her to champagne and lobster, Ron. But… er… couldn’t you maybe… put together a picnic basket and bring her to the park? I mean. I really don’t think it’s much of a date if I’m there too. Without a date.”

Ron perked up and Harry cringed. Now _that_ was an opening he hadn’t intended to give.

“Speaking of which, Harry. Don’t you think you’d better be asking Ginny out instead of lecturing me about Hermione? My sister’s not going to wait for you forever.” Ron sat up taller and looked smug.

“Well, I, er.” Ron leaned forward and gave Harry an eyebrow. Harry wanted to cringe, but then he decided he could call Ron on it. He’d been putting this off too long anyway. “Good idea. I think I’ll actually go firecall Ginny right now, Ron.” He barely registered the surprise on Ron’s face as he stood to head for the fireplace before he could lose his nerve.

He grabbed the Floo powder and knelt down to call into the flames. “The Burrow!” Ron’s family home appeared and a bright red head appeared shortly after. “Hullo Ginny, there’s something I think we should, er, talk about. Can I meet you in front of the Three Broomsticks in twenty minutes?”

Ginny nodded, looking curious but not even remotely dismayed, which was a relief. Harry ignored Ron as he gathered two butterbeers, some Muggle crisps and two green apples and packed them into a lidded basket Kreacher had found and repaired while cleaning the basement. Then he _Flooed_ to the owl postal office in Hogsmeade and headed for the pub on foot.

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Draco was so deeply engaged with separating out the substances he’d managed to wash off the broccoli that he literally and visibly startled when Headmaster Snape touched his shoulder. He spilled some of what he’d been working on. “Damn,” he couldn’t help but whisper. 

“Apologies,” the other man rasped, but he didn’t back away. Draco felt crowded against his work table. Vulnerable and juvenile. Draco wasn’t short anymore, he had crested six feet and kept growing. He might even be taller than his father. But Headmaster Snape could still manage to make Draco feel five feet tall.

“I should try to clean this up,” Draco tried. But Headmaster Snape didn’t back off. Instead, he put a large hand on Draco's shoulder. He leaned a bit closer, even. Draco felt claustrophobic. Then he berated himself. This was his old head of house! His potions professor! His mother and father’s closest, dearest old friend!

“Pardon my blunt words, please.”

Draco nodded. The man could hardly speak these days, and wouldn’t be anything but terse until his entire throat and neck were completely healed in a few years. All the Malfoys knew and expected it.

He did wish the professor would let him turn around though.

“You are a poofter.”

Suddenly terrified, rigid, both sweating and frozen, Draco gripped the edge of the work table and did nothing else, said nothing at all.

“It is all right,” Snape huffed into Draco's ear. “I am as well. I can help you. With your parents.”

A thousand horrible emotions and questions and fears and possibilities arose in Draco's frozen mind, but only one came out of his mouth. He paused, trying to state it well. “What about… Potter’s mother?” The whole world now knew about _that_ one sided, pivotal situation, thanks to trial testimony from Snape, Potter, and Dumbledore’s portrait and stored memories.

“From the heart, not the… body,” the Professor replied slowly. “Pure. Begun in childhood innocence.” He paused. “Understand?”

Draco thought about how he’d always felt about Pansy, and thought he might understand. He nodded slowly.

Snape backed away a little, but Draco had no interest in turning around at this time. They’d just revealed terrifying secrets. Ones Draco didn’t think Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy would be able to forgive. Not that he was ever going to ask them about such a thing as long as they lived. No matter what Headmaster Snape might think.

That was when he felt it. There, against his backside. Snape had an erection. He was gently pressing it against Draco. Draco felt like his entire body had turned to jelly. Jelly on fire. His cheeks flamed, his chest burned. The shadows of scars that Potter had left on him, the ones Snape had nearly eradicated, screamed like lightning. His legs were weak, his arms were stuck, he could not move, he could not speak, he could not _Apparate_ , his new wand would not have obeyed him even if it had been in his hand. He felt like he wasn’t even breathing.

Snape hovered at Draco's back for what felt like an hour, but the clock passed less than two minutes, before he silently slipped out of the laboratory.

Draco halfheartedly pretended to clean up the mess he’d made some minutes before when the professor had startled him. Soon he gave up and headed off to shower. He stayed under the hot water so long, used so much soap, he thought his skin might crack open, but he still didn’t feel completely clean.

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“So, after all that… what’s up, Harry?” 

Harry and Ginny were finally settled in the most private spot they’d been able to find outdoors. It was a lovely day, and many people were out shopping or strolling through Hogsmeade, but even in a light, happy crowd, it had felt like the two of them had a huge banner floating over their heads, begging for attention. Everyone had smiled indulgently at the two of them, or nodded happily, or in one case a man had even tipped his hat to them. Harry had hated it. Ginny had looked supremely uncomfortable as well, once she noticed.

“Hang on,” Harry murmured, looking around. “I can’t tell how alone we actually are.”

“Oh, let me,” Ginny offered. She stood up and cast a slow circle around them with her wand, then muttered something while swirling her wand around in a rather dramatic fashion. Harry thought it looked a bit silly, but if it worked, he didn’t plan to complain. Then Ginny cast _Muffliato_ with a wider sort of hand motion than Harry normally used.

Done, she sat down, smoothing her skirt and reaching for the butterbeer Harry was holding out. Harry cocked his head at her, smiling. “What was that?”

“ _Privacy Perimeter_. Got it from George and, er, Fred.” She lost her smile for a moment, staring at the grass. Then she started up again, looking like she was trying to be happy. “I mean, the twins taught me most of that. I won a bet with them and then they had to.” She grinned hugely and turned a bit pink, staring at the butterbeer bottle. “Oh, and Hermione taught me that last part, so I’m sure you know it, but the rest was from the twins. They often wanted a bit of privacy while they worked stuff out for the shop.”

“What was the bet?” Harry asked her, smiling.

“Oh!” Ginny laughed. “I’ll tell you later. But only if you’re really good!”

They laughed together, then Harry pulled out the apples and they both crunched awkwardly for a few bites.

Halfway through his apple, Harry gathered himself and put the fruit down. Ginny finished a bite and did the same, looking at him.

“We’ve never really talked about this… relationship,” he finally managed. “Not since we left Hogwarts. Last year everyone thought we were dating and we let them think so, but… it didn’t really feel like dating to me. It felt like a brilliant friendship.” He chanced a look at her face, and she looked relaxed, so he calmed down.

“After the war and all the funerals were over - after I didn't feel like I was starving, or about to die, or..." or drowning in pain over the dying, he wanted to say, but how could he say that to Ginny, whose family had barely survived the loss of one of their own? He paused, unsure.

"Or grieving for everyone we lost?" said Ginny softly, and he met her gaze, grateful.

"Or grieving," he said, nodding. "And especially after I realized no one was trying to kill me anymore, and after my nightmares stopped….” He stared at the sky and lay down on the grass to get a better view of the way the sunlight dappled the tree leaves and the clouds puffed through the sky above them. It was so hard to express it, how it had felt like all the passion had just drained right out of him. "I... all I wanted anymore was to just feel safe, and happy.”

He looked over at her. She was leaning over him a little, braced on one slender arm. She didn’t look upset. She didn’t look surprised, either. She gave him a small smile and nodded, so he tried to continue.

“Before, 6th year… all I wanted was to snog you and to keep you safe from harm. I know you wanted me to trust you more, but somehow I couldn’t. Maybe Dumbledore trained me not to trust anyone but your brother and Hermione. Maybe I couldn’t see you as an equal because I’m the sexist, chauvinist pig you used to say I am. I dunno. Whatever the problem, I had you all wrapped up in this blanket of fictions.”

He rolled onto his side and pulled up a few blades of grass. “But then everything changed, and so did I. And so did the way I felt about you. You’d always been really strong, but I saw you so differently after the battle, and after Fred’s funeral, too. I could finally really see your strength, and instead of wanting to protect you, hide you in a tower or something, I wanted to hide behind you.”

“You’ve really told me all of this before, you know,” Ginny smiled sadly. “It felt like we talked about nothing else when we got back to Hogwarts last September. I hope you can remember all the things I told you, too?”

“Yeah,” Harry sighed. He fell onto his back and looked at the cloudy, sun-streaked sky. “I remember. Things changed for you, too. You were angry at me for ages for not seeing you as a strong person. You were angry at me for not trusting you the way I should have. You were angry at all three of us for not bringing you along, especially when Ron left me and Hermione and you found out. You felt certain that things would have been better with you there, gone faster. And I doubt we will ever be able to agree on that. But then we got back to Hogwarts and just as I suddenly felt all drained and needy, you felt all strong and protective.” He twisted his head to see her face better. “The final battle… it changed everyone.”

He sighed and rolled back onto his side. “So we settled into a friendship that everyone thought meant we were not only dating, but that we were sure to get married any minute. And we never bothered to talk about it with each other, let alone any of them. Just an hour ago your brother was bugging me to ask you out. Says you won’t wait for me forever and I need to get cracking or I’ll lose you.” He smiled sadly and reached for her hand. She let him take it and they squeezed each other for a moment. Then she let go.

“Ron’s a dolt.” They both laughed. “What does Hermione like to say? The emotional range of a teaspoon? Just because I hold you in my lap on the Gryffindor couch doesn’t mean I want to marry you. Even though Ron’s had a close female friend since he was a first year, he can’t see us as anything less than engaged.”

“Well, but to be fair to Ron, he’s fancied Hermione since at least fourth year, probably second.” Harry smirked a little. Those two were going to be the death of him, seriously.

“All right,” Ginny conceded, “I suppose that is true. But the important thing is, yes, I don’t want to marry you. I don’t want to date you. I did want to protect you. But now that we are done with Hogwarts…. Just now, walking here through Hogsmeade…” she shivered with disgust. “I can’t live that life. The spotlight is only fun for a few minutes, and only when I feel prepared. It’s great right after we win a Quidditch match but I can’t live in it every minute. I don’t know how you stand it, and yes, I know you’ve always hated it!” She laughed. So many people assumed Harry loved being a celebrity, but Ginny was much too intelligent – and much too close a friend – to be that stupid.

“Protecting you from hordes of Hogwarts girls who want to date a hero… that’s very different from protecting you from the whole damn world. Not only does it sound like more than I can handle, it sounds like it would be my entire life. I want my _own_ life.” She grinned with excitement, looking at the sky. Then, more serious, she turned to look Harry in the eyes again. “I know we want different things from life, as well. That’s much too important to ignore.”

Harry picked his head up and rested his cheek on a hand. His elbow jutted out toward Ginny. When he noticed, he realized that although it could have felt like a ploy to reach for her hip, or touch her leg, it wasn’t. He realized that it didn’t bother him. It didn’t feel forced and false, like the common room game sometimes had the previous year. It didn’t feel like anything Ginny would misunderstand, either. He relaxed a little further into the grass and smiled. “About that, have you decided between Quidditch and being an Auror yet?”

“Yeah!” She looked animated and he smiled back at her enthusiasm. He wished he felt bouncy about something.

“I realized that it’s a lot harder to get a spot on a professional Quidditch team than it is to get into the Auror Academy.” She frowned pensively. “Especially these days.”

They both sighed.

“So I’m going to do the rounds of the tryouts as soon as they start, and see what happens. If I don’t get an offer from a team, then I’ll see about entering the Academy. It’s Wales first, then Australia, then Ireland, then for some reason all the English and Scottish teams do the last bit together.”

“Wait… Ireland? No Northern Ireland?”

She looked confused briefly, then her face cleared and brightened, and she laughed. “I never remember that the Muggles have a divided Ireland,” she reminded him.

“I usually forget what Floos and _Apparition_ do to international boundaries, so I think we’re even,” he said, and they both laughed.

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“Thank you for meeting me!” 

Malfoy had entered the Costa Coffee more confidently this time, but – as far as she could tell – in the exact same outfit. She wondered if he had just one Muggle outfit, specially cleaned and set aside for his critical, formal meetings with her out in the Muggle world of Costa.

“Certainly, Miss Granger,” he agreed. “Would you mind terribly ordering me another one of those teas? I haven’t any Muggle money. I’ll pay you back, of course.”

His smile was self-deprecating and Hermione marveled at the changes between them. Who could have imagined him called her _Miss_? She found she quite liked it. “Happily,” she agreed, “but you don’t have to pay me back. Business expense!” She stood to fetch both of them a drink.

Although there were several more people in the café this time the line was fairly short, and she watched him from it. He’d sat with his back to the wall, able to see the whole café, but he mostly scanned the area by the door. His back was ramrod straight but he didn’t look scared. Maybe uncomfortable. He caught her eye once and nodded. She nodded back.

They did the “putting milk in” dance with eye contact and hand gestures. She thought he might want low fat milk again and he agreed. Feeling daring, she put a bit of cinnamon on her latte. Then she grabbed the tray and managed the maze of tables to return to theirs.

“Who could have imagined this?” she wondered out loud as she settled their drinks on the table and hung her shoulder bag on the edge of the chair.

“Us meeting? Working together?” he replied, and pulled his tea closer.

“And getting along!” she continued.

“Hm,” he frowned and sat up very straight. “Let’s not be overly optimistic.”

Hermione put her latte down, hands between them, suddenly uncomfortable. Then she saw the smirk, and smirked back. “Indeed,” she agreed, damping down annoyance, working to replace it with amusement. “Mustn’t jump to conclusions.”

He grinned. Then he leaned back a bit and picked up his tea. “Is it just the two of us, then? I’m surprised neither Potter nor Weasley has accompanied you here, either time we’ve met. I thought you said they were going to be involved?”

“Apparently that time I _was_ being overly optimistic,” Hermione said, frowning. “Ron is very busy reassuring his mother that he isn’t going to vanish into thin air, poor Molly, and Harry’s feeling aimless and unable to open a single book. So, here we are, just the two bookworms, in a Muggle café.”

“Speaking of which,” Malfoy leaned forward a bit, “should we really be discussing this project here? It’s crowded this time.”

“No worries,” Hermione said, and cast _Muffliato_ surreptitiously, her wand essentially invisible inside her long sleeve with a ruffled edge.

Malfoy raised an eyebrow, impressed. “Please teach me that one, later of course. Looks useful.”

“We learned it from Snape,” Hermione admitted.

Malfoy leaned forward and put his elbows on the table. “Really?”

Hermione couldn’t interpret the look on his face, because why would a Slytherin look uncomfortable talking about Snape? “Yes, though I doubt he knows. Harry ended up with Snape’s old potions text. Total fluke. But it was stuffed full of advice about potions, plus lots of unrelated spells. Unfortunately it was destroyed in the war. But I think you mentioned that Snape was helping you in the lab? So you could talk to him about it.”

She sipped her latte and gave it a thoughtful look before putting it down. “You know, he really should publish a potions text. His _teenage_ modifications put the current Hogwarts’ potions texts to shame. Truly. And he clearly has a knack for inventing spells.” She flushed with heat, suddenly remembering _Sectumsempra_ and how desperately she didn’t want to discuss it. She sipped her latte again to hide her blush and backtracked through her mind to get back into a safer place in the conversation. “I’ve just discovered how difficult that is.”

“Inventing spells? I’ve never tried. Awfully ambitious, don’t you think?”

“I might not have previously, but now that I know I _can’t_ , yes. It is ambitious. But anyway! Tell me how things are going in the lab, won’t you?”

“Well, not badly, I think. I have managed to do a few things. First of all, _Scourgify_ is useless against pesticides. The spell doesn’t seem to recognize the pesticide as a ‘dirt,’ per se. Washing with pure water removes at least some residue, however, and I was able to use that to not just remove some of the pesticide, but to start an analysis. So far all I know is that one of the apples you brought me has at least four different pesticides on it that I was able to remove and separate from each other.”

Hermione let her excitement show on her face. “That’s brilliant!” she exclaimed. “And in just a fortnight! So, what do you need to continue down this path?”

Malfoy sipped at his tea. “I’ve been thinking about that, and it depends. Are we trying to magically replace pesticides, find some way to teach Muggles how to grow vegetables without this particular stuff? Are we trying to clean our own vegetables, or all wizarding consumed vegetables but not Muggle? Are we planning to release an army of do-gooder wizards into Muggle markets every week to cleanse vegetables in secret? Are we planning to plant a farm and sell pesticide free vegetables? I thought I understood this project, but then I read that stack of articles you gave me, and now I realize…” he paused to sip his tea again. “Frankly, I have no idea what the goal is.”

He looked uncomfortable. She wondered if he thought she might be annoyed by the barrage. “Those are such good questions,” Hermione breathed. “I knew I wanted to work with you. The truth is, I don’t know. I guess… ultimately, ideally, I want to obviate a use for pesticides altogether; but without killing all the pests, because my mother has explained that such a move would kill everything…”

“Wait, why? That’s a brilliant idea! Who needs grubs and beetles!”

“Birds, for one,” Hermione said glumly. “Birds need them. Hedgehogs as well. Mother loves finding them in her garden because they eat insects. Who doesn’t love hedgehogs?”

“Oh,” Malfoy sighed. “Of course. I see.” He paused and stared out the window for a moment. “That is frustrating.”

“Isn’t it? But we can’t just kill all the things that eat the vegetables. And we can’t just cast pest-repelling-wards on every farm, and we can’t sneak into all the Tescos every blessed night and wash everything with some potion you’re going to invent.”

“But… could we sell that potion to Muggles?”

“Yes, I think that’s probably our only option. Although how we deal with the statute of secrecy I have _no_ idea. I suppose it has to be a potion made of nothing that will alarm a Muggle scientist. Or even arouse their curiosity. But it has to work. And it has to be cheap to produce. I suppose we can use magic to produce it, that would make it much cheaper. Only the final product just has to appear thoroughly Muggle. And then we have to figure out how to sell it to Muggles all over the world. Or maybe we sell them the formula and then they make it all over the world?” She looked out the window, thinking. “That would probably reach more people… and that potion wouldn’t stop pesticides, of course, or undo genetic modifications. Plus the chemicals will still get into the water and the butterflies and….” She stopped. The problem was just so big.

Malfoy stared at her for a long moment, then picked up his tea. “Well, this isn’t a tall order or anything!”

They both laughed.

Hermione sipped her latte and put it down. “You’re doing great. I’m really excited by all of your progress.”

“But…?” Malfoy asked with an eyebrow up and his cup dangling in the air, curled into his long fingers.

“Yeah, but.” Hermione sighed. “Not you, me. I need more money and I don’t know where to seek a grant. Or how. Harry generously gave me a little seed money….” She started to giggle.

Malfoy’s face went cloudy for a brief moment, then cleared. “Oh!” he laughed softly. “Seed money! That’s delightful!”

“Not a wizarding term, then?” she asked.

He shook his head no.

“Well, yes. At any rate, I’ve spent the fifty galleons from Harry on coffee, tea and broccoli!”

“You brought me a great deal more than broccoli,” Malfoy said tentatively.

She waved a hand in the air. “I know, of course. I was just rhyming to be silly. You’ve got me in a mood. The point is,” she smiled sadly, “that preservation charms can only keep those vegetables for so long, and your potions ingredients aren’t free. My local library is also no longer enough. I need books I can keep and should probably subscribe to a periodical or three. Perhaps you should as well, now that I think of it. But where shall we dredge up the funding? I am sure my parents could help me seek funding in the Muggle world, so I hope you can help me seek grants in the wizarding world. I’ve not the slightest idea where to start, unless I should ask Professor McGonagall…?”

“No…” Malfoy ventured slowly. “I doubt she’d be of assistance. This isn’t a common problem. Which shouldn’t surprise you, honestly. It’s obviously ordinary for Muggles to do these research projects that could end any which way, but wizards just… don’t. Companies sometimes pay people to create new things to sell, but they have narrow goals in my experience.” He sipped his tea and stared out the window for a moment. Hermione watched him think, drinking her own latte and choosing not to interrupt his silence.

“I think, if you would permit me, that our first avenue should be for me to approach my own father.”

Hermione couldn’t help crinkling up her face into a wince.

He spread his hands out and looked apologetic. “I understand that you two have… history.”

Hermione tried to smile but she was pretty sure she wasn’t fooling him.

“I wouldn’t suggest that you actually ask him yourself. I can do it! And I think he could be very helpful. I don’t know if you realize but he’s extremely pleased that I am working on this project.”

Hermione raised an eyebrow.

“No! Truly. His motivations might not… well. I should say, potions research in and of itself does not excite him.” They both smiled.

Hermione straightened her spine and firmed her resolve. “I’m sure if you think he’s the one to approach that you should do that. I think we need to start with a thousand galleons. Do you think that seems reasonable?”

“Yes. I can think of two journals I ought subscribe to right off the top of my head. And neither are European, so the owl post fees will be high. Which reminds me, my mother is starting to resent how much I borrow her owl. I should purchase one of my own. Then I want to buy some excellent reference guides so I know what ingredients can be passed off as Muggle. I want to try working with a few ingredients that are somewhat volatile and therefore expensive to purchase and also to store. I think a thousand galleons could be spent fairly quickly.” His face went a bit grim. “I hope father can help. Or possibly Headmaster Snape.” He frowned slightly, then recovered. “If neither of them have any funding sources for us to seek… well. We can fly that Granian when it’s out of the barn, mm?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Hermione agreed, and she made to clink their cups together. Malfoy clinked his cup against hers, and they both finished the last of their drinks in silence.

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“Hey, Harry!” Ron stepped into the kitchen and sniffed appreciatively. “Did you just pop something in the oven? It smells fantastic.” 

“They should actually be ready really soon, Ron. I’m just now done cleaning up. Your timing is impeccable.” Harry grinned wryly at Ron, as though this didn’t happen nearly every time, as though Harry wanted help baking or even cleaning up after. He dried his damp hands on a Gryffindor tea towel and leaned against the counter. The timer charm was still clearly visible, and the pumpkin chocolate drop biscuits would be ready to check in just under two minutes.

“Baking for Ginny?” Ron gave a conspiratorial wink and Harry winced. Ron noticed, and frowned.

“About that,” Harry began, then stopped. What the hell was he supposed to say? It had been surprisingly easy to “break up” with Ginny. So why was it hard to tell Ron what he’d done? Harry knew he needed to just get it over with. He sighed.

“No,” Harry finally said. “I’m just baking because I like it. But also, Ginny and I… we’re not dating, Ron. We haven’t been. Not for ages.” Harry looked down at the tea towel hoping this wouldn’t lead to a row. He heard Ron pull a chair from the table and sit down.

“I don’t understand,” Ron finally answered. “What is ‘not for ages?’ You two were dating all last year, at Hogwarts. I noticed you stopped seeing her after we left school, but… wait.”

Harry looked up. Ron was frowning at him, but it wasn’t his angry frown. It was the look he wore when he was really concentrating on a chess game. Only Padma Patil and Bill Weasley ever seemed to get him to concentrate that hard on chess, but Harry had seen the look plenty. Last year Ron and Padma had played a great deal of chess. The timer charm ended with a tiny bell sound in Harry’s left ear.

“Were you and Ginny actually dating last year? Because I thought you were. But… I can’t remember a single time when I saw you two kiss. Or call each other boyfriend or girlfriend. You just… sat together a lot. And held hands all the time. Have you been dicking my little sister around?” Ron looked upset, now.

“No, Ron. Ginny always knew exactly what was going on. She was protecting me. She appreciated that she could. She always did want to prove that she was as strong and helpful as she told me she was. I was always as honest with Ginny as I was capable of being.” Harry sighed, pulled out a chair, and sat down. Then he waved his wand at the oven and flicked it off, opening the door. The biscuits looked and smelled good, but if he didn’t stop them from baking they’d start burning soon.

“It’s everyone else we fooled. We knew everyone thought we were dating. And I guess I let even you and Hermione think so too, because I always thought it could turn back into that at any time. I had loved her so much, all that awful long year while we were on the run. I figured when the numbness from the war wore off, I’d fall back in love. You know? But… Ginny and I had a really good conversation a couple of weeks ago, like you suggested. We had a really private picnic under a tree near Hogsmeade, you know? And she doesn’t want to date me. She hates the weird attention we get everywhere we go, and she wants to go off and be a world famous Quidditch player. She’s already left for Wales. After that she heads to Australia.”

“Couldn’t you, maybe, go with her?”

“She didn’t invite me, Ron.”

“Oh…” Ron answered slowly. “I see….” He stood up, walked toward the open oven, and levitated a hot biscuit off the metal tray. It was still so hot that it sagged around the edges, and Ron grabbed a clean tea towel, snagged the biscuit out of the air with it, and took a careful bite.

“That’s a damn good biscuit,” Ron sighed. He sat down again.

“Thanks, Ron,” Harry said, and levitated his own melty-hot biscuit into his own tea towel. He took a bite. It really was damn good.

Ron chewed his biscuit thoughtfully. Finally it was all gone and he put his hands down on his knees and looked Harry in the eye.

“I don’t pretend to understand why you’d rather stay home and bake than travel the world with Ginny, mate. But you know what? I don’t have to understand. I don’t understand why Hermione wants to study all the time, why my only sister decided to hie off to Australia or why my mum now has to be looking right at a person to feel secure that he’s still alive.”

He levitated another biscuit out of the oven, took a bite, and made a tiny little happy moaning noise. “No, I take that back,” Ron said contemplatively. He took another bite. “I think I get Mum. But what I meant to explain, is that… I don’t have to understand. I just… I just have to still be your friend.” He finished his biscuit, though it was obvious that his third bite, fully half a biscuit, burned the roof of his mouth a little. “Right?” he asked Harry, looking uncertain.

“Right,” Harry replied, genuine relief surely all over his face. He finished his own biscuit. He ought to write this recipe down, before he forgot what he’d done.

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“Doffy, more wine. Severus, is dinner to your liking? Narcissa noticed how well you liked the rice dish last Tuesday but tonight you’ve hardly touched it.” 

“It’s quite nice.” The professor’s voice sounded croaky. He sipped his water before continuing. “I simply prefer steak. Draco, your research?”

“It is coming along well, sir,” Draco nodded at his father, who smiled broadly. His mother gave him a small, proud smile as well, which he returned. Then he turned back to look at Headmaster Snape, straightening his back.

 _I imagined it,_ he firmly declared inside his own head. _Quite obviously, through all those robes, I simply imagined it. It had to have been his wand._ Draco sipped his water and willed his face to stay impassive and his skin to stay cool and pale. _There is NO other explanation._ The shape of a large, hard cock still felt burned into his backside, but he ignored it and took a deep breath.

“Both well and less well. I am glad you asked, as it happens. Miss Granger and I discussed the project just last Friday afternoon and we decided I should ask the two of you for assistance with the next phase.”

“Funding,” Lucius Malfoy declared; somehow combining relish with determination. He drank more of his wine, waiting for Draco to continue.

Narcissa Malfoy made a tiny moue of distaste, but quickly covered it with a dab from her napkin.

“Yes, sir.” He turned to face his father, feeling himself calm, feeling himself warm to his subject. “Miss Granger and I together determined we can’t proceed further until we procure at least a thousand galleons. But I feel confident that we will almost certainly run through that before we complete the project. It is…” he paused and sighed. “It is a fascinating challenge, but it’s remarkably enormous. We require books, periodicals, potions ingredients and other related supplies, and also supplies to test.”

“Vegetables,” Snape interjected. He should have sounded contemptuous, saying such a word. But even with his rough voice he sounded encouraging.

“So far sir, yes.” Draco had managed to look at Snape’s face, and yet he still felt calm. His parents were here. He’d misunderstood. They were all adults. “I expect there could come a time when I will need to collect insects or birds, though. There could be expenses involved with that sort of thing as well. The vegetables, however, are a known expense. They must come from Muggle markets, of course.”

“A thousand galleons, you say?” Lucius Malfoy looked out the window, contemplative. He took a sip of wine, then a larger. “I might be able to help you acquire that level of funding. Severus and I shall look into it together.” He turned then, looking at Headmaster Snape. He smiled broadly at Snape, then turned his glittering grin onto his son. His wine glass never seemed to leave his hand anymore. His enthusiasm seemed out of place.

Draco was reasonably certain he hid his discomfort behind a mask of appreciation and gratitude. A glance at his mother confirmed that her eyes held no reaction. She was looking at his father. Good. “Thank you, sir,” he said with a clear voice, looking only at his father.

“I expect we’ll have an answer for you soon, son. So enjoy your meal!” He made a toasting motion and finished off his glass. “Then off to the laboratory with you! Isn’t that right, Severus?

“I would join you?” Headmaster Snape asked in graveled voice.

Draco opened his mouth to attempt a redirection but his father got there first. “But we must talk, Severus! And the boy has to learn to work on his own now!” Draco's father lowered his voice slightly and winked at Headmaster Snape. “Not to mention, old friend, I can’t have you stealing all my son’s glory again, now can I?”

Narcissa, Severus and Draco all winced visibly. “What?” Lucius boomed out, and Doffy squeaked with alarm at Lucius’ outburst.

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“Harry, you have to help me. He’s trying for my girl! I know he is! I need you to find out what’s going on.” 

Harry fiddled with his butterbeer label so he didn’t have to look Ron in the eye. Ron didn’t want to talk to Hermione about anything serious and while Harry thought he was being stupid, Harry was also a massive hypocrite. Because Harry didn’t want to talk to _Ron_ about anything serious. Every time Harry tried to think of a way to tell Ron something uncomfortable, like that Ginny had written that she had been offered a second-string Chaser position and was staying in Melbourne, or that Ron needed to court Hermione better, Harry would shy away from the hard truths instead of speaking them out loud.

Part was remembering that horrible time when Ron had stormed off, leaving just Harry and Hermione to hide in the woods and hunt for Voldemort’s stupid soul slivers. Part was remembering how bad he was at this stuff. Part felt like pure cowardice. Ron was his best mate! But he’d tried once and failed and now… he couldn’t seem to make himself try again. Funny how he could talk to Ginny and Hermione so much more easily.

He’d found it easy to act without deliberating during the war; looking back it seemed like nothing was too scary to do. But Harry did know that avoiding _actions_ just wasn’t his way. Avoiding _conversations_ , however….

“I, er…” Harry started. He still wasn’t looking Ron in the eye. “I guess I could head over there, to the, er, to the _Manor_ ….” He wished Ron would see what he was asking of Harry. Malfoy Manor gave him the creeps just to _think_ about. He really didn’t want to go over there. On the other hand, it was about doing more than it was about talking, right?

“Would you, mate? That would be brilliant! And, er…” Ron picked at his own butterbeer label. It started to peel away from the glass. “While you’re busy maybe I should, I could see if Hermione wanted to, er, have lunch or something. With just me.”

Harry looked up and Ron looked at him, pinkish around the edges under his freckles. So maybe Ron _had_ heard him that one time, after all.

“That’d be good, mate. Really good. Sure thing.” Harry felt his confidence returning. “I’ll owl Malfoy and you owl Hermione. Deal?”

“Deal,” Ron agreed heartily. “We can handle this.”

“No problem,” Harry agreed, and they both stood and headed up the stairs toward the tiny, window-filled, top-floor room that Pig and Harry’s new owl, Cinnamon, shared.

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“Your, er, your house elf let me in.” Harry stood in the doorway of Malfoy’s lab, feeling like the world’s shortest idiot. His hands were jammed into his pockets and he was realizing his tshirt was far too casual for this large, beautiful house. He felt scruffy, unshaven, and clumsy. 

Malfoy looked elegant and perfectly suited to both the house and room. Harry resented him for it. But he thought he probably envied him for it a little as well.

“She could fetch you some tea, if you like?” Malfoy said in his posh drawl.

“I, er, if it isn’t too much trouble.” Harry agreed. The Malfoys probably had really nice tea, and it was usually just the thing in an awkward moment.

“Doffy,” Malfoy said quietly. The little pink elf popped into the doorway. She wore the oddest “dress,” made of what looked like paper streamers. Apparently it wasn’t clothing if it wasn’t fabric? Harry smiled at her and she gave a little curtsey.

“Sir?” she requested, and now Malfoy smiled at her. Why was he smiling at _her_? Harry felt warm and angry and confused. He jammed his hands down further into his pockets and looked at the floor.

“A full tea service for two, lapsang souchong please. With lemon cream biscuits and a few nice sandwiches. I have a guest.”

“Sir,” Doffy agreed, and vanished.

“Er, thanks.” Harry told the floor near Malfoy's feet.

“What brings you to my laboratory, Potter?” Malfoy’s voice sounded remarkably courteous and Harry remembered how, just a moment ago, Malfoy had called Harry his “guest.” He did not want to be the first one to throw a wrench into this pleasant little truce. Not to mention, Hermione would fucking kill him if he got into a fight.

“Well, just curiosity, really,” Harry tried. There was no need to mention that it was someone else’s curiosity and that it was related to romance, not veg and potions. Then he had a good idea. “And wondering if I could help. Has Hermione been here yet?”

Malfoy answered quickly, sounding startled. “I, no! I couldn’t possibly ask Gr... … _Miss_ Granger to visit this house. Not after…”

Harry finally looked up, then. Malfoy looked surprised. And embarrassed. He was the one looking at the floor, now. “After the war.” Harry finished for him, feeling extremely sour and wondering if it would show in his voice.

“Yes,” Malfoy agreed, apparently polite enough (now) to ignore Harry’s emotions. “Exactly. I’m impressed that you’re here, as it happens. I hope being here again isn’t too unpleasant.”

“It’s perfectly all right,” Harry lied. “It’s no big deal at all. But how do you and Hermione communicate?”

“Mostly via our owls,” Malfoy said. “We communicate enough that I finally purchased one for myself. Peytral. He’s surprisingly friendly so you might see him today. And I’ve come to quite like her Sozo. Such a pretty owl. Then I think you know we meet face to face occasionally in the Muggle world. No one bothers us there. Do you know Coasters? Wait, no… Coo…” Harry looked at Malfoy again. He looked flustered.

“I’ve only been there twice,” Malfoy admitted. “It’s Co or Cos something. Red and white...”

Harry grinned, despite himself. “Costa Coffee,” he said, feeling a little better. “Hermione introduced Ron and me to it this summer. There are a tonne of them now. Seems like more every time I venture out into the Muggle world. But we usually go to the one closest to her mum and dad’s. We should all four go sometime,” Harry blurted out, then felt himself go hot. Why had he said that?

He stopped worrying about it, though, because Doffy suddenly popped into the doorway again, this time carrying a silver platter at least as wide as she was tall. The biscuits and tea smelled delicious and he realized it had been ages since he’d last eaten. The boys smiled at the tray and Malfoy cleared the end of the longest of his work tables. Doffy put the tray in the spot Malfoy had opened up and curtseyed once, looking at Malfoy again, acting like she wanted more instructions.

Instead Malfoy waved a hand at her negligently and then ignored her. “Have a seat, Potter,” he said, pulling up a tall stool for himself. “Let’s talk about how you might be able to get involved.”

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Hermione looked up from her books when someone entered the room. She smiled to see Luna in the doorway. “Luna, how are you? I haven’t seen you in a few months. Would you like a cinnamon roll?” She began clearing her books and papers. “Harry is suddenly baking them all the time. It’s like it has become everyone’s duty to help him get them all eaten.” 

“Yes,” Luna said warmly, “I’d love to help.”

Hermione smiled at Luna and put four of the sticky, sugary buns on a little platter. Then she poured the hot water into the warm teapot and put the lid on. Luna had levitated the platter of buns to the table, so Hermione carried the tea tray. It wasn’t good for the bones and muscles to do everything with magic.

“It is so lovely to see you, Hermione. And Harry’s house is strong! Are he and Ron here? I’d love to explore it thoroughly.”

Hermione smiled when she thought about Ron. “Ron and I had lunch in the park but then he got a _Patronus_ from Arthur. Ron’s poor mum. Sometimes she gets a little panicky and needs to see Ron in person. It’s worse since she really started to understand that Ginny’s moved to Australia for the foreseeable future.” Hermione sighed and Luna took a bite of a sticky bun.

“Death and grief change us,” Luna agreed solemnly, and patted Hermione’s hand. “It isn’t like a set of clothes you can take off. It’s more a new skin.”

Hermione almost told Luna she was being ridiculous, then stopped. Luna’s mum had died when she was a little girl. Hermione still had all four grandparents. Luna probably knew more about death in the family than she did; and besides, she was learning to filter and not be so bossy.

“It has definitely been very hard on all the Weasleys since Fred died,” Hermione agreed instead. Then she bit into a bun. They were a little doughy this time. It was hard to really cock up cinnamon rolls, though.

“And Harry?” Luna asked, sipping the tea she’d poured. It looked awfully weak. Hermione suppressed a flare of annoyance. Luna was a guest and she could pour her tea when she liked, even if Hermione was quite certain that it was too early.

“I’m not sure where Harry is. At lunch Ron told me he thought Harry had headed over to Malfoy Manor to see if there was anything he could do to help Draco with our research project, but he can’t still be there. Thinking about that house is almost as uncomfortable for him as it is for me.” Hermione paused. “I hope it doesn’t bother you for me to mention the place?”

“Oh no,” Luna said brightly. “Please don’t ask me to _go_ there, but we can talk about it. Only I thought it would be more fun to talk about your research! I still want to put it all in The _Quibbler_.”

“Well,” Hermione said slowly, putting a bun back down on her plate. “The publicity might be good for us. Perhaps it would help me raise more funds.”

Luna took out a notebook and a large, ostentatiously labelled “Truthy-Dicta-Quill.” She spelled her notebook to stay dry if the tea spilled, and she took another bite of her sticky bun. Hermione watched, frowning at the brand name on the quill, trying to think how she could explain it all so that only _actual facts_ landed in print. Then again, The _Quibbler_ had handled Harry’s tale of the return of Voldemort beautifully.

Hermione took a deep breath and made a conscious decision to trust Luna. So she began to describe the problem as she saw it. She told Luna what her goals were and how much Draco had accomplished as far as his last Owl had indicated. She explained what they had spent money on so far. What books and periodicals they could not yet afford. The shocking lack of magical assistance for researchers. Hermione even tried to help Luna understand how much easier it was for Muggles to do research now, since the advent of the internet. There was almost nothing more frustrating than realizing magic was a _hindrance_ , not a help.

But most of all, Hermione tried to convey the almost ridiculous breadth of the problem. How it permeated the Muggle world. How it was growing, not shrinking. How it might start with one crop, one farm, but it ended up infiltrating the entire water supply and the entire food chain. How it therefore was a wizarding problem too, not just a Muggle one. How the Muggles had created it with their science, yes, but how their goals of feeding everyone were noble. By the time she and Luna were done, Hermione felt like she needed a nap. How would they ever manage to make a dent in such an enormous problem?

A week after The _Quibbler_ published a fairly balanced (for them) article on the research, Hermione received her first anonymous bank deposit notice. Someone who did not wish to be named had donated fifteen galleons toward their work!

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“These are my mother’s roses. Are you sure you actually want to see this? This is the sort of tour Mum gives the octogenarians!” 

Harry laughed at his feet. He still couldn’t really look at Malfoy in the face for more than a second or three, but there was absolutely nothing and no one waiting for him at home and he couldn’t quite say goodbye to this visit yet. And Malfoy was shockingly polite, and good company. He was probably desperate to get back to his lab but he’d indulged Harry with a full tour of that room, and then followed Harry’s awkward suggestion to “show me” the grounds and gardens. By now they’d been out here, Harry was pretty sure, for over an hour.

“I like gardens, Malfoy. I am British, you know.” Astonished at his own sense of familiarity, Harry knocked his shoulder into Malfoy’s arm. Why was the git so damn tall?

Malfoy laughed too, and Harry exhaled his relief. Something really weird was going on, and he didn’t know what it was. But since he was getting along so well with Malfoy, who was getting along so well with Hermione, he was probably just growing up. It felt odd, but he thought he might like it.

“Do you have a garden, then?” Malfoy asked, continuing to guide them both down paths closer to the hedges than the house. Every once in a while he would have to get rid of a peacock with a spell Harry still didn’t think he had heard properly. Whatever it was, Malfoy’s use of it made the birds not just rush away but also squawk like mad. He and Malfoy now both laughed every time Malfoy did it.

It was weird to feel almost comfortable around someone he’d always thought was a huge git. Now he was just... Malfoy.

“No,” Harry realized. “I have a space for a garden in the back, but it’s just an overgrown mess. Maybe that should be my next project. You and Hermione have this, Ron is still just helping to patch his family back up, Luna has The _Quibbler_ , but I don’t know what the hell I want to do with myself. Maybe a garden is a good place to start. Not that I was ever all that good at Herbology.”

“Well, were you actively bad at Herbology?”

“You mean, like I was at…” Harry stopped himself from saying ‘Occlumency.’ “At, er, potions?” he started to laugh and Malfoy politely chuckled along, but nowhere near as loudly as Harry. “No, nothing like that. I always got decent marks. Hey… we couldn’t figure out anything I could do before. Is there something I could _grow_?”

“Oh!” Malfoy said quietly. “Oh, that’s not a bad train of thought at all. I think… probably? Will you come back in the lab with me and let me look through a few things?”

“Sure,” Harry agreed amenably. It would be kind of brilliant if he actually could contribute to Hermione’s project. “Let’s go back.”

They meandered toward the back of the Manor together, only interrupted by one peacock. This time, when Malfoy raised his wand to deal with the screeching bird, he looked sideways at Harry and grinned. Confused but intrigued, Harry smiled back, and suddenly the peacock was propelled backwards so fast by the force of Malfoy’s spell that it took a distinct moment for the sound to catch up. Left behind were two crazily ostentatious feathers. Malfoy picked them up, stuck one in his pocket and handed the other one to Harry, who took it with a sideways grin. “Thanks, Malfoy.”

They both chuckled intermittently all the way back to Malfoy’s laboratory. Happily it was almost right next to the back door. Once they arrived, though, Malfoy gestured to a chair and rushed to his bookshelf. He picked up an enormous, leather bound tome and started leafing through it. “I think I should find the plant I am thinking of in here, but I could be wrong. I haven’t been through these as thoroughly as I need to. So far I have been spending all my time with that nasty residue I wash off the vegetables.”

Malfoy’s attention promptly vanished into the book he was holding, so Harry just nodded. Ignoring the chair Malfoy had apparently thought he might want to sit in, he instead stood in the window; looking out over the grounds he and Malfoy had been exploring for the last… he checked the clock. It was now gone six in the evening. Cor.

Malfoy was jotting notes down and muttering excitedly, and Harry was pretty sure he should leave Malfoy alone. You didn’t go near Hermione with anything less than a cinnamon bun when she got like that. Even then you put the plate down, tapped her till she saw the food, and vanished before she started trying to get you to listen to what she was thinking about. Malfoy looked like he was the same sort, so Harry drifted over toward the far window and enjoyed the view.

His hand found the peacock feather in his pocket and he looked at it, bemused. He was definitely taking that home. He couldn’t wait to find out how Cinnamon reacted to a peacock feather. It was too long right now though, sticking a foot and a half out of his pocket, so he shrank it down to about six inches long and stroked it absentmindedly.

Wandering the gardens really had given him the new, more pleasant perspective on this place that he’d told Malfoy he was hoping for when he’d asked for the outside tour. Nonetheless he was completely unready to explore the house. Just walking from the front door to Malfoy’s lab with Doffy had been really uncomfortable. Ron totally owed him one. But even though he had thought he was bullshitting Malfoy when he’d come up with that reason for the tour, he now realized, bullshit or not, it had accomplished what he had asked for.

That was a relief. He hated carrying this sense of dread with him. He wanted to shed the war, as much as possible. He knew he’d never get rid of all of it. The anger. The sadness. The empty feelings. The guilt. All those people were still dead; and nothing, not portraits or ghosts or the promise inferred by the Resurrection Stone, could change that he was alive and they weren’t. But being spooked by a damn house? That was just not on. If he and Malfoy were working together now, which apparently they were about to be, then he needed to be okay with coming to this place. He felt like next time, he would be. Mostly.

Malfoy was standing next to him and pointing to a passage in his enormous book. “Potter?”

“Yeah,” Harry replied, refocusing himself into the idea of his own back garden. “Find something?”

“If I am right, I am going to start going through this Sea Pink stuff like mad. It is native to England, so I assume that means it won’t be hard to grow. I could be wrong, though. I’m not familiar with this stuff. I’m not even sure how to pronounce this Latin name, honestly. This book writes it two different ways. Are you still friends with Longbottom?”

“Yeah,” Harry agreed. “I might ask him for help. Were you writing notes down for me, earlier?”

“Yes,” Malfoy said, and they moved back toward the closer table. “I’ve written down the names of four plants that I would appreciate having an inexpensive source for. Also, two of them are far more effective fresh, but are more commonly sold dried. So these five different things, here…” he paused to write the name of the fifth plant down on the parchment.

That’s when Harry saw Headmaster Snape standing in the doorway. He stood up fast, like a soldier caught shirking. He shoved Malfoy, probably a little too hard.

“What?” Malfoy snapped at Harry, and then he, too, noticed Snape. His spine went just as rigid as Harry’s. What was it about that man that always made Harry feel like he’d got caught elbow deep in the biscuit jar? Whatever it was, it worked the same way on Malfoy. Harry scowled.

“Sir?” Malfoy said politely.

Harry felt like Headmaster Snape was trying to set him on fire with sheer glare power. He hadn’t seen the man in months. He hadn’t been the man’s student since sixth year! Why was he so angry at Harry? His hand found the little peacock feather again and he grabbed onto it like it was protection from Snape’s irrational nastiness.

“Your father. Dinner.” Snape sounded like an angry frog and Harry breathed in sharply to hold in his shocked laugh. He’d forgotten to expect that.

Malfoy glanced at the clock. “I thought dinner was in half an hour, sir. I apologize. I will be there momentarily.” Malfoy turned away from Snape and looked Harry right in the eye. His warmth was gone; replaced with a miserable looking formality that made Harry’s heart clutch with sympathy. Something _seriously_ weird was going on. Suddenly, too. Everything had been idiotically normal just a few minutes ago. “I do apologize, Potter. I completely lost track of time. Please, do accept my most heartfelt invitation to dinner?”

“Er,” Harry stumbled. He’d not expected that, and he was quite sure trying to make nice with Lucius and Snape over a meal would be a mistake of Hippogryphic proportions. “Er. No, thank you.” He swallowed and tried to scrounge up some manners, even though he was seriously thrown. He’d been here for a really long time! He couldn’t eat dinner with Snape! He _definitely_ couldn’t eat dinner with Malfoy’s dad, and eating dinner in their dining room… his mind filled with his last “memory” of it: Professor Burbage disappearing into Nagini, and he had to breathe deeply to stop himself from getting sick all over Malfoy’s really nice leather book.

“It’s awfully kind of you to offer, but…” he came up with a believable lie and went with it. “Earlier I promised Mrs Weasley I’d have dinner with all of them tonight. I lost all track of time as well. I’ll just take this?” He picked up the notes Malfoy had written for him, and Malfoy nodded. His face had become completely inscrutable. Every bit of warmth was gone, replaced by a bland distance that seemed to inch towards Harry like melting ice.

“Later, then.” Snape growled, and vanished from the doorway in a swirl of black crepe.

“Shall I walk you out?” Malfoy asked, sounding calmer; looking more like Harry remembered.

“Sure,” Harry agreed, and stuffed the now folded notes into his pocket. “Sorry I can’t stay,” he said quietly. “I don’t really have other plans,” he confessed, not sure why. “It’s just…” words stopped coming and Harry gave up, hoping Malfoy knew what he was on about.

“It’s fine,” Malfoy said quietly as they walked down the long hallway toward the front entrance. “That room still gives me the creeps sometimes.”

“Thanks,” Harry said, almost in a whisper. They walked quietly together all the way to the front gate in the hedge. Harry found himself stroking the peacock feather with the hand inside his pocket – feeling the parchment edges of the note in there as well. They stopped just inside the imposing gate and on a whim, Harry stuck out his right hand. Malfoy stared a bit, then took it. They shook once, firmly, and let go. “I’ll start looking into this gardening lark, then?” Harry asked, trying to smile without any discomfort.

“Sounds good,” Malfoy agreed, and opened the gate for Harry with his wand. “I apparently need to rush off to dinner.”

He turned away and Harry _Apparated_ home from just outside Malfoy’s front gate, his left hand in his pocket, gripping both the note from Malfoy and the shrunken feather.

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“Hey Luna, you here to visit Hermione again?” Harry stumbled into the kitchen fussing with his dressing gown to make sure he was completely covered. It was all he was wearing. 

“Oh no, Harry,” Luna said in a dreamy sounding voice as she stared at him with her piercing eyes. “I’m here to visit with you.”

“Oh,” Harry said, surprised and flattered. “Did you want to see my new garden?” He started the tea. Luna was picking at what was left of a cinnamon bun. He wondered how long she’d been sitting at his table, and for that matter, how she had gotten into the house. “Oh, Luna. Don’t eat that, it’s got to be stale. I didn’t bake at all yesterday!”

“It’s fine, Harry. You’re a very good baker. You must have strong domiciliary magic. It’s why you are drawn to the garden, of course.” She took another strip off the edge of the bun. The sugar stretched before it broke, and Luna grinned at it before breaking the piece in half and popping both into her mouth, one following the other.

“And yes, I would love to see your garden. Mother taught me to garden. And to fish, as well. My father isn’t very good at either of those, I’m afraid. His domiciliary magic isn’t very strong, though his zoophyte magic is excellent. That’s how he researches many of his articles for The _Quibbler_ , of course.” She popped the remaining half of the stale bun in her mouth and Harry turned toward the stove so he wouldn’t have to watch her chew it. He knew he was getting picky about such things, but really. He ought to bake more today.

“I can finish making the tea, Harry,” she offered kindly, staring out the window over the sink. “You get dressed? I think we should get outside soon, before the rain comes.”

Harry looked out the window at the cloudless blue sky and wondered why it was always raining or about to rain in England. It hadn’t been nearly this rainy at Hogwarts, had it? Or was he just usually inside the castle? At least it was good for his garden. “Sure,” he sighed, and turned toward the doorway. “I’ll be right back down.”

*XxX*

“So,” Harry continued, pointing toward the messy start of a compost pile in the far corner of his garden. It was stacked high with dead weeds and broken green vines. “I think you can see what a mess I started with!”

Luna smiled encouragingly so Harry walked toward the tree in the center of the space. “This, of course, is my London plane. It’s both my best and worst asset. It provides too much shade, but it attracts all manner of helpful wildlife. So many birds nest here that I have almost no insects at all. But then there’s all this shade! Luckily it doesn’t come into leaf until rather late in the spring. But still, I have to learn to work around it. I was really happy to learn that the soil is excellent, or so Neville promises me.

“He says that when you plant a massive garden, leave it to run riot, then let it rot for a few generations, it’s actually rather fabulous for the soil. So that’s good. He’s put me in touch with some seed supply houses he says I can trust to have good quality, and he even bought me a book that I’m more than halfway done reading.

“It turns out that you can’t ever buy seeds from Muggles, because they’ve learned how to create seeds that make plants that are biological dead ends, can you imagine? The plants you grow will make seeds, but they won’t be viable. They can’t make more plants. Isn’t that insane?”

“Money,” Luna said sadly, and shook her head.

“I think it must be,” Harry agreed, leaning against the tree. “They’ve gone from being a place you buy from once, and then you become self-sufficient with that plant, to a place you are stuck buying from every single year. The selfishness of it, it boggles my mind. But you know,” he said, looking up into the tree, watching clouds scuttle past over his head, “it also makes me feel really good about helping Hermione with this project. This whole mess, it’s so much bigger, and nastier, than I’d ever imagined.”

“You have good domiciliary magic though,” Luna smiled. “And your house and garden are remarkably free of Nargles. I know you will learn everything you need to know.”

“Thanks, Luna,” Harry said. He’d learned how to tune out the Nargle and Wrackspurt talk. Luna was always slightly mental, but she was still a supportive, kind and even insightful friend. “It’s intimidating to think about everything I’ll have to learn in order to really grow a lot of all those plants Malfoy is hoping for. And I have no idea how I can offer him a fresh supply throughout the growing season, too. It seems like everything gets ripe at the same time, you know? And then what?

“I have tonnes to learn, and I worry I won’t be of any real use for a few years, but… it’s interesting. I like getting dirty.” He laughed and Luna twirled, laughing with him. Her radish earrings swung away from her ears and Harry found himself wondering if she grew them herself, if she put new ones on the wires every day, or if she used preservation charms. He needed to ask. She might know some useful vegetable preservation charms.

“Show me the seed catalogs?” Luna asked, interrupting his musings. She was smiling, her face crinkling up in what remained of the sun. The two friends went inside not long before the rain began to pitter on the leaves of Harry’s plane tree.

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“Son!” Lucius Malfoy had a small glass of something brown. It smelled bad now and Draco was only halfway into the room. His father opened his arms wide in a show of welcome and a bit of the brown liquid sloshed out of the glass onto the last priceless rug they had left. His father didn’t seem to notice. 

“Father,” Draco responded politely. He was going to pretend that glass didn’t exist if it killed him. Doffy had popped in and started silently cleaning up the spill. Draco was determinedly not looking at her.

“Wonderful news, my dear boy! I can finally have some scotch to celebrate my hard work today! Severus and I have found a source of funding for your marvelous research!” He took a long swallow from his glass. “Eleven hundred galleons! And more where that came from!”

“Father!” Draco heard the thrill and wonderment in his own voice. He would have cringed at his own lack of control, but it obviously wasn’t bothering his father. “That’s marvelous news! To whom should I write the thank you note?”

“That’s just the thing!” Draco's father finished his last swallow and put the glass down, only to pick up a bottle of scotch and refill it. “Doffy?”

“Sir,” Doffy said, appearing in front of him immediately.

“Ice,” Lucius said, holding out his glass, completely full of scotch.

“Sir,” Doffy said, taking the glass and nodding solemnly. She enlarged the glass so that the ice would fit, then conjured some and added it. Then she handed it back to Draco's father and disappeared with a bow.

“Now, what was I saying,” Lucius mused quietly, staring at his drink. “Oh! Yes! No thank you note necessary, son. Not even _permitted_! This donation is completely anonymous! _I’m_ not even sure who is giving it to you, honestly. Headmaster Snape found the donor. He just needed me to help him with the Ministry paperwork. Someone terribly interested in _science_ , he says. ” He frowned a bit, then took another drink and it erased all concern from his face.

Draco's heart sank. “That’s… marvelous, father.”

His father didn’t seem even remotely aware of the sudden change in Draco's mood.

“So you go work harder, son! No running out of anything! Dad took care of it all, didn’t I?” Lucius beamed proudly and waved Draco out, not waiting for an answer.

Draco left the room with a slight bow of his head, wondering how many years it had been since he, or _anyone_ , had even imagined calling Lucius Malfoy “Dad.”

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“Petrol? It’s Petrol, right?” The owl blinked slowly at Harry. It had seemingly come from nowhere to perch on top of the shovel Harry had shoved deep into the topsoil. Peytral swiveled his head in an arc, checking out the garden. Harry sat up and put his filthy hands on his denims. Hermione had bought him sturdy leather gardening gloves, but he only wore them to protect his hands from the tools’ handles. He’d discovered that he would not put a barrier between him and the dirt. He needed to touch the plants that were starting to grow. He’d suddenly begun keeping his fingernails ridiculously short. The alternative was baking topsoil flavoured sweets. 

“No voles here, sorry. Between my owls and the occasional visit from Hermione’s kneazle, this garden is completely vermin free. Anyway, I don’t see a letter, did Malfoy send one?” Peytral looked at Harry balefully. He did not extend a leg and he didn’t fly away.

“Er,” Harry mumbled. “Did Malfoy send you, or is this just a social call? Because I think Pig and Cinnamon are asleep.”

The owl dipped his head at Harry in a look that froze with contempt and Harry snickered even as he felt chastised. This was the _perfect_ owl for Malfoy.

“Er, should I maybe just _Apparate_ over there and see what’s up, then?”

This time the owl swiveled his head around, toward Wiltshire, if Harry remembered his directions, which was debatable. He made a soft, encouraging sound Harry thought he could remember Hedwig making on occasion.

“Well, er… all right. I can do that.” Harry stood slowly, brushing topsoil from his shins. The knees on these denims were a lost cause without soap and water. “I’ll just go clean my hands, and…”

Now Peytral rose into the air and hovered at Harry’s head, wings beating, beak menacing.

“All right then!” Harry cried, “I’ll just grab my wand and head right on over there this instant, shall I?”

Peytral flew right past Harry at this, and confused and a bit alarmed, Harry went ahead and _Apparated_ to the gate right outside Malfoy Manor.

*XxX*

“Er, thanks Doffy.” Doffy had rushed Harry to the doorway of Malfoy’s laboratory. Snape had nearly flown past him, his face a rictus of compressed menace and danger. “Malfoy?”

Harry stuck his face into the lab, wondering what the hell would be in there that had the owl and the house elf and Headmaster Snape in such an uproar. All he saw was Malfoy, white as a sheet and sitting in a chair in a badly lit corner.

“Potter? Doffy said you were at the gate. What are you doing here? I mean,” he stood and waved his hands apologetically. “I’m sorry, that was rude, I.…”

“It’s all right.” Harry stepped further into the room. “And I’m honestly not sure,” Harry said, confused. “Your owl seemed to think I needed to come visit.”

“My owl? Peytral?” Malfoy walked toward the middle of the lab. Nodding, Harry slowly moved closer.

“But how would Peytral have been to London… Peytral was here not long ago. Maybe… half an hour? But I think it was less. I know he was here when….” Malfoy stopped talking and looked at the floor.

“I can’t explain it Malfoy, and I have no idea why your owl came looking for me, but he was about as clear as an owl can get. You know, without a letter.”

Malfoy gave Harry a look of disdain. “Yes, Potter. I got that part.” He turned and looked out the large window, his back to Harry. “I wonder if Doffy….”

Harry realized that Doffy had been waiting at the gate when he’d arrived. Weird. “You want to ask the house elf if she sent the owl? Like, _Apparition_ sort of sending? I guess a house elf could do that… though I can’t imagine why. What was going on with you about ten or fifteen minutes ago?”

Malfoy wrapped his arms around his chest and stayed facing the window. “Nothing, really. I was working. The professor came by to see if he could, er, you know, help me with my, uh, my research. Of course, my research.”

Harry leaned against the huge sturdy table behind him. He still had no fucking idea what was going on, but he knew he didn’t like it. Malfoy was never quietly miserable. Not since he’d started working with Hermione, at least.

“Well, clearly it was nothing,” Harry lied, guessing Malfoy didn’t want to talk about it.

“Nothing,” Malfoy repeated, sounding relieved. “Exactly. Nothing.” He still wasn’t smiling.

“But since I’m here now, why don’t we go walking in the gardens again and we can catch each other up on everything that we’ve been doing since last week?”

“Oh!” Malfoy said softly. “Why, of course! If you’d like. My owl interrupted your day, after all. I should make that up to you.”

“I’d like that,” Harry said, politely. He was surprised to realize, it was true.

*XxX*

“So, yeah,” Harry finished quietly. “I doubt I’ll have anything harvested any time soon, but I’m learning a lot, and I’m surprised how much I am enjoying all this.” He looked around at the beautifully manicured flowers and carefully trained topiary. “Who does the gardening around here?”

“My mother does some, but I think the house elf does all the rest. If you wanted to ask her something about it I’m sure Doffy would fall over backwards to help you.”

“That might be really good,” Harry said. He wanted to ask how long they’d had Doffy and if her name was like Dobby’s for a reason, but he thought that might be dangerous territory. Malfoy looked at his watch and Harry thought it was probably approaching evening. The sun set so late in the summer it was hard to keep track of time. “Hey, Malfoy, I’ve got an idea. I’ve got some people coming over for dinner around 8:30 tonight, you should come, too.”

Malfoy looked at Harry, surprise on his face, and what might look a little like hope too, if Harry squinted. “I… I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

“Well, you won’t be. So that means it’s settled, right?” Harry elbowed Draco in the arm and blushed. He had no idea what he was doing. And Ron was going to murder him. What the hell was he doing, inviting Malfoy to dinner when Hermione was going to be there? Ron would freak. He should invite more people, that might help. “Here,” he tried. “I’ll show you how you won’t be intruding. I’ll invite even more people!”

“I…” Malfoy attempted, and waved his hands feebly at Harry, but Harry was on a Gryffindor roll and was not to be stopped. He yanked out his wand and conjured his Patronus, sending one to Neville asking him to bring Hannah too, if he wanted; one to Luna, and one to Dean Thomas. “Now you have to come, Dean, because I’m trying to convince Malfoy to come too, and if you and Luna are both there then, er, well, you just have to come. Okay stag, you can go!”

“Eloquent,” Malfoy murmured with a crooked smile. “But no Patronus for, er, Miss Weasley?”

Harry laughed at the idea. “Wow, no! She’s in Australia. She’s playing Quidditch there now, second-string Chaser for the Melbourne Monsters.”

Malfoy looked quite shocked; but Harry couldn’t think of anything else to say about it. “So, you’re coming to dinner, right?”

“Well, I honestly would like to very much–”

“But…” Harry finished for him.

“Yes, but my parents have invited Headmaster Snape to dine and I know I’m expected at home.”

“Well, can’t we just ask?” Harry said, confused. “It isn’t like Snape is your _friend_ or anything, he’s your parents’ friend, right? Why would your parents object?”

Malfoy looked honestly startled at the idea.

“Come on,” Harry encouraged. “Let’s go find your mum.”

*XxX*

“Of course, Draco.” Narcissa Malfoy had given Harry a polite smile when they had entered the room. She had put her needlework in her lap and given Draco a beaming, glowing smile. Harry’s breath caught in his throat and he had to look away. Maybe his own mum would have had a smile like that.

Narcissa granted permission immediately. “Your father and I don’t want you locked away here, son. We want you to socialize with people your own age. Of course we do.” Then she’d smiled at _Harry_ , who couldn’t help but look at the floor. “It’s lovely that you two will be having dinner together with former classmates. Go whenever you like, Draco dear. Your father and I will happily entertain Headmaster Snape. Have a lovely evening. Floo if you’ll be home after eleven, that is all I ask.” She turned to Harry again. “Thank you for thinking to include Draco, Mr Potter.”

“Er, oh. Of course, Mrs Malfoy. Happy to, I mean.” Harry forced himself to smile politely and look Mrs Malfoy in the face, and she returned his embarrassed awkwardness with another warm smile.

“You boys have fun,” she said, and picked up the colorful cloth from her lap. She smiled at them kindly and then her needle began to flash in the sunlight. Harry and Draco left the room.

“We should probably get going soon,” Harry admitted. “I need to warn Kreacher! I hope this doesn’t piss the old guy off too much.” Harry frowned. When Hermione found out that Harry had turned dinner for three into dinner for possibly maybe eight, and less than three hours in advance, she’d kill him _for_ Kreacher, for sure.

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“So, yeah,” Harry said, to general laughter and smiles. “I named her Cinnamon because I can’t bake without her getting into the dough. She’s a right greedy thing, honestly, but she’s a good owl.” He smiled and looked at his beer. “Still,” he said, lifting the bottle high, unable to help himself, “to Hedwig!” 

Harry clanked his bottle against Malfoy’s wine glass, Hannah’s beer bottle, Neville’s teacup, then – stretching a bit, Dean’s butter beer. “To Hedwig,” everyone agreed. They drank, some slow, some fast. Harry finished his beer. “It’s getting a bit late,” Harry said reluctantly. Dinner had been far more pleasant than he’d expected. Kreacher hadn’t batted an eye when Harry and Malfoy had arrived with the news of the dramatically increased guest list. He’d fawned over Malfoy for a moment, then – surprisingly calmly – had asked them to leave and let him cook. Harry and Malfoy had worked on turning the library into a dining room. They’d moved the table in there and then increased the size back to normal. Malfoy and Harry had set the table quite formally, and then Harry had shown him the garden.

Harry’d halved the massive kitchen table after the war, sick of remembering Order meals with Fred and Lupin and Tonks, the table groaning with Mrs Weasley’s cooking. Meals flavoured heavily with optimism and disquiet. But tonight was different. Harry was pleased to move the table to a different room, cover it with an unfamiliar brocade cloth Kreacher had found, make new memories in a slightly different setting.

Luna had arrived first, of course. It hurt to see how lonely she so often was. She had great ideas sometimes though. Harry was excited to look into this well-dressing thing she’d talked about so highly. Old pureblood custom, she’d told him. Malfoy would probably know all about it, she’d said.

But Harry had made up his mind right away to do it alone. Malfoy was on the other side of the library/dining room trying to make small talk with Hannah and Neville and hadn’t overheard. Harry was excited to run with this thing. He’d impress the hell out of Malfoy. Besides, it sounded cool. All organic materials, water gods, pureblood traditions. Harry was all over it.

Everyone was getting up from the table. Kreacher was clearing the pudding dishes.

Harry started walking toward the door and his friends mostly followed him. It looked like Hermione planned to go home and Ron was trying to change her mind. Harry left the room, hoping everyone else would follow and give them privacy.

When he got to the Floo, Harry wished Dean and Luna goodbye. He couldn’t help grinning when Dean suggested to Luna that he “see you home, make sure you’re safe and all.”

“It’s just a Floo ride home, Dean,” Luna said calmly. “But if you’d like a kiss goodnight on the other end I would consider that. As long as you think it’s not because of Wrackspurts?”

Everyone else was giggling warmly as Dean and Luna Flooed off hand in hand. The huge Floo was one of the best things about this nasty old house, Harry decided. Well, second place to the garden out back, of course, but only since he’d ripped it out and started over.

Neville didn’t have to ask if Hannah wanted an escort. Hannah kissed Harry on the cheek and Neville shook his hand, saying goodbye. But when Hannah moved toward the fireplace, Neville didn’t. “It was good to have dinner with you, Malfoy,” Neville said, turning to face him. “I’m glad Harry invited you.” Neville stuck out his hand, and Malfoy seemed to hesitate, surprise emanating as he looked at Neville.

“Of course,” he finally said, grabbing Neville’s hand abruptly. “Forgive my poor manners. It was lovely to be here, with all of you.”

Surprise aside, Harry wondered if Malfoy really meant it. He was unfailingly polite these days. It was almost like a defense mechanism. It kind of reminded Harry of Dumbledore. He shivered.

The Floo went silent; Neville and Hannah had gone. “Are you all right?” Malfoy asked.

“Just a sudden chill,” Harry lied. “Nothing to worry about. I hope you enjoyed tonight?” He knew his face was honest and hoped Malfoy would tell him the truth, since they were alone for the moment.

Luckily, the small, shy smile Malfoy gave him seemed completely sincere. “I did, I really did.” His grin got wider. “Who would ever have thought, huh? But no, despite everything from… before, I really did.” He paused and looked at the floor for a moment. “I’m really glad you invited me.” There was a noise from the stairs, but Harry and Malfoy ignored it. “I, er, today… Headmaster Snape…. Well.” He paused and Harry sat on the arm of the closest chair, wondering what the hell Malfoy was trying to choke out. “The elf, you see, and my owl. Because of course! I mean, they wouldn’t normally….”

He paused, exhaling with frustration, and Harry waited. He would have interrupted, or encouraged, but his mind was blank. This seemed important. Harry didn’t know what to do.

Then the door banged open.

“Ronald! You can’t…. Oh.” Hermione blushed. “We thought you might be in here, Harry. Malfoy?”

“Exactly,” Malfoy sighed. “I really should be going. It is nearly eleven and my mother and father are expecting me home.” He turned to Harry, ignoring Ron’s annoyance and Hermione’s confusion. “Thank you again, Potter.”

“Harry,” Harry interrupted, surprising himself. Feeling awkward, he stood up. It didn’t help. “I think it’s time for first names.” Then he blushed. “I mean, for me! Whatever you want for you. But please,” he started to relax slightly. “I’d rather you call me Harry. You know, now. Okay?”

They shook hands and Malfoy smiled oddly. “If you wish, Harry. And yes, please call me Draco. That would be, I mean, right. I should go, uh, Harry. Uh, Weasley, Miss Granger?”

Harry expected Ron and Hermione to offer up their first names as well, but they stood silently by the door instead.

“Good night to you both,” Draco offered. “I had a lovely evening. I enjoyed your company.”

The other two remained silent. Embarrassed at their behavior, Harry shook Draco's hand again. “I’m sure I’ll have a reason to come by again soon, er, Draco. I’ll owl?”

“Thank you, er, Harry. I’ll look for Cinnamon in the sky.”

With that, Malfoy grabbed a handful of powder and stepped into the Floo calling out “Malfoy Manor!” and disappearing into a swirl of smoke.

Harry turned to Hermione and Ron, who looked slightly less gobsmacked now.

“That was odd,” Ron said.

“Having him here for dinner?” Harry replied. He sat in the chair near the fire. “I suppose, but Hermione really started it. I’m just keeping him away from your girl!” Harry smirked slyly, hoping he wasn’t about to get a retaliatory pillow in the face; or worse.

Hermione’s arms crossed over her chest. “Malfoy has nothing to worry about from me,” she said primly. “That will never happen. No matter how polite he becomes. Although,” she paused, “he’s become awfully polite.”

Ron glared at her.

“He sure has,” Harry tried. “He shook hands with…” he could tell they weren’t listening. “With Neville,” he finished quietly.

“Oh stop it,” Hermione groused at Ron, still glaring, hands on her hips now, neck high. They were both ignoring Harry.

“I think I should go… check on… Kreacher,” Harry stammered out.

Ron and Hermione didn’t seem to notice when he walked out of the room.

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“Now Mum,” Hermione fluttered nervously into the kitchen. “I did make it clear that Headmaster Snape is, er…” 

“Prickly. Yes, dear.” Her mother smiled indulgently.

“That’s a polite way to translate what our daughter said,” Dad laughed as he closed the oven again.

“Now Frederick,” Mum said grumpily, “if you keep checking the damn roast it will never be done!”

“Don’t be silly, Louise,” Hermione’s dad said. “It’s almost done now. The meat thermometer even says so! I think we’ll be able to put it on the table as soon as our guest arrives. Assuming he’s not more than 10 minutes late. But from everything Hermione’s told us about the man--”

Frederick Granger found himself interrupted by a doorbell. He glanced at the clock on the microwave. “Right on time! What did I say. Hermione sweetie, come get the door with me. Give your mum a chance to take off her apron.”

Hermione tried to look calm and relaxed as her father took long strides to the front door. She followed close enough behind that she was standing behind her father as he opened the door to Headmaster Snape. Unsurprisingly, he wore all black. Surprisingly, it was trousers, a turtleneck, and a jacket. He carried a narrow cloth bag that, Hermione realized, almost certainly held a bottle of wine. Hermione looked up, thinking to catch Snape’s eye, but the former headmaster was shaking her father’s hand.

“Come in, come in! It’s a pleasure to welcome you, Headmaster.”

“Severus, please,” croaked Snape unpleasantly. Her father didn’t bat an eye at the man’s terrible voice, and Hermione breathed a sigh of relief; her parents had been listening.

“I’m so glad you could come,” Hermione offered, and Snape turned his bat-wing eyes toward her.

“My pleasure,” he growled uncomfortably, and made to hand her the cloth-wrapped wine.

“Thank you,” she said as politely as she could. “Should it breathe? Should we put it on ice?”

“Breathe,” Snape agreed gruffly, and Hermione escaped to the kitchen as her father offered to give her former potions professor a tour of their home.

*XxX*

“But what I don’t understand,” Hermione admitted to Snape across the table as her parents rose to clear, “is why you haven’t invented any spells to assist you with communication!”

Snape raised an eyebrow at Hermione and she sipped daintily at her wine glass to stall. Honestly, it wasn’t like he didn’t know. He had to. But he wasn’t _saying_ anything!

She leaned forward across the table, putting her wine glass down. “I know you can invent spells, Professor. You must know Harry had your old potions book for most of our sixth year. How else would he have learned, er… well.” She looked at the table and said it. “Sectumsempra. But also Muffliato, Langlock, Levicorpus….” By now she was looking at him again, and he looked a strange combination of horrified and amused.

“The thing is,” Hermione admitted, “I _can’t_ invent spells. It’s nothing like memorizing. Nothing at all. It’s nothing like logic and it’s nothing like analysis. I can synthesize, but I can’t invent. Not spells. But _you can_. Why haven’t you?”

Snape spread his hands out, as though helpless. His silence was making Hermione more frustrated than she was comfortable with.

“You mean you’ve tried and you can’t? Or you haven’t even tried?” Her voice was leaking out her emotions and she felt her face start to heat.

“Latter,” he nodded, and finally looked slightly chagrinned.

Hermione couldn’t help it. She narrowed her eyes at him and went into lecture mode. “How could you waste such a gift? I have a list as long as my arm of spells I need and can’t find. No one has invented them! I can’t imagine what you’ve been wasting your time with,” she snapped, feeling ridiculous and yet right at home. “Unless it’s the other thing you should _obviously_ do now that the war is over?”

Snape just looked at her calmly. Clearly amused now, and how infuriating was that? So she told him. “Obviously, you need to write a potions text!”

“Now Hermione dear,” a warning voice came from the kitchen. “Don’t terrorize the Headmaster.”

“I’ll stop, Daddy,” she called back, and couldn’t help smiling. But then she clutched her water glass and spoke earnestly. She was too determined to stop now. “I’ll try to word it as a suggestion this time, and not an order, but Sir, didn’t Slughorn annoy you all that year, in the staff lounge or meals or anything, about what a potions genius Harry was? And all the while you knew full well he had to be cheating? Well, I saw it as cheating then, but now… I’m honestly not sure what it was. But the point is, Harry had your old book. And he _was_ good, because it was full of improved instructions. Borage… that man was nothing like you. He had no skill, whether for writing a textbook or brewing potions I’ve no idea. Probably both!” She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself down. People didn’t like being told what to do. She knew that now.

Snape had his arms crossed over his chest now. He was leaning back, but he had on a half smile too, and he was clearly listening. So she plowed past her parents’ potential disapproval and made her case.

“Generations of Hogwarts students have been suffering with those appallingly incomplete, inadequate and worst of all, _incorrect_ texts. And you can fix that! Not to mention, the research I need to do I’m forced to do with Muggle methods as much as possible, because _the internet has surpassed magic_.” Hermione was shaking a little now. She could barely believe she’d been so intensely forthright. To Snape! At Mum and Dad’s dining room table! She clutched at her water glass and tried to figure out whether or not she was ready to drink some without waggling the glass around and giving away her nervous state of mind.

Snape stared at her for a silent, painful moment. He was still leaning back. His arms were still over his chest like a shield. One eyebrow went up and Hermione nearly cracked open like an eggshell, spilling yellow apologies all over her parents’ favourite “company” tablecloth.

And then Snape tried to smile. It looked unpracticed and slightly forced, but it was nonetheless encouraging. Hermione took a staggered breath and waited with a slowing pulse.

“What’s,” Snape finally managed to croak out, “ _internet_?”

*XxX*

Hermione tried not to overwhelm him, but between the computer itself, gopher, and especially Usenet… there was a never ending list of things she kept realizing she needed to show him. Finally it was a quarter after ten and her parents were making funny coughing noises and switching off extraneous lights.

“Professor,” she said anxiously as the four of them stood at the front door. “I know I’ve been a bit pushy….” Hermione tried to take it maturely as all three of the adults smiled their amusement. “But I can’t help but hope that you’ve heard me, that you’ll take my advice!” She wrung her hands with the futility of trying to say it all again before her parents cut her off.

Snape smiled at her parents, then he gave her a grave look and everyone seemed to still, waiting. “I heard.” Snape finally growled. “Listened,” he continued. Then he raised one hand and tapped himself on the side of the head. He nodded once. Only then did his solemn eyes leave hers. He looked at her mother, shook her hand once, shook her father’s hand. “Thank you for dinner,” he growled. “Lovely meal.”

Hermione’s parents took over from there. Hermione was vaguely aware that her father offered to walk Snape back to the garden shed for a private _Apparation_ , or to point him toward the nearest taxi stand if he preferred. Dizzily, Hermione returned to the computer in the front parlour. The green letters on the screen softly illuminated the keyboard and the air around her face and hands. There were so many things she still hadn’t shown the Professor! She could only hope she’d convinced him, nonetheless.

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“Ah, Neville! I don’t just like this, I love it!” Harry leaned back on his heels, uncaring that the hands he was bracing on his knees were utterly filthy. It was far too late for that, no matter how Kreacher liked to grumble. Maybe he’d buy a washing machine. That ought to help the elf get even gardening clothes clean. 

Neville smiled and looked up into the thinning, yellow and brown leaves of Harry’s plane tree. “I wonder,” he said, as a bird hopped from branch to branch, “if we love the same things about it?”

Harry laughed. “I love getting dirty,” he started, and Neville laughed. Harry’s smile got bigger and Neville lay back on the dirt under the tree. Harry lay back as well, his feet away from Neville’s, their heads close enough for normal conversation. “I love feeling like I’m learning something Hermione can’t nag me about.” Neville laughed again and Harry grinned hugely. “Seriously, though,” Harry tried again, “I think what I love best is feeling like I’m totally independent and yet needed and all caught up in what my friends are doing, all at the same time.”

“Interwoven?” Neville tried.

“Exactly,” Harry breathed out. “I’m my own, you know, thread, but in this woven thing that Hermione and Draco and I are all making together. She’s all reading research, leading, making out our directions. He’s on the potions, and I’m growing the stuff he needs to do that.”

Harry paused; there was more he could say, but he didn’t quite want to. “I’ve put up all those greenhouse spells you taught me. You say they’ll last all winter. Which is brilliant, by the way,” Harry said, and knocked a shoulder into Neville’s. “So I’m starting a patch of cucumbers tomorrow, got the broccoli planted today. I’ve started growing three of those obscure potions ingredients Draco wants and I’ve got room for at least one more, maybe both. So I’m really helping with this stuff! And I feel really good about that, you know?” Harry smiled up into the tree.

“I think I understand,” Neville said humbly. “I like the independence of it as well. Just my hands and the dirt. The plant grows or it doesn’t, because of the way _I_ nurtured it.”

“Right!” Harry agreed enthusiastically. “And I could rely on nasty poisons to make my job easier, maybe even get Draco more ingredients faster, but instead I get to feel all clever using all sorts of other stuff to make this work, like those new spells you taught me, and nematodes and aphids and… well, I’m still figuring some of this out, honestly. But it’s actually kind of exciting to learn it, since I know I’m the only one giving myself marks, you know? I like that part, too.”

“Yeah,” Neville agreed quietly. Harry reached out and blindly found the trunk of his plane, feeling the rough bark come away a bit under his newly calloused hands. Neville released what sounded like a happy sigh. They relaxed together in the silence, late fall sunlight making its calm way through the remaining leaves of the tree above them.

“The weird thing,” Harry eventually ventured quietly, unable to hold it from Neville any longer, “is the way Draco fits in so… I don’t know, so easily, I guess? I was amazed when I found out he was meeting with Hermione, working with her on some huge project I thought I couldn’t hope to understand.”

“I think he’s changed,” Neville offered in a quiet voice.

“He sure has,” Harry agreed enthusiastically. “But he’s not the only one. Hermione reached out first, and all.” He hoped his pride in her was obvious. “But yeah, Draco has definitely changed. He’s quieter, and calmer, and tonnes more polite. And… I just… maybe it’s because of all that, but I keep, er, spending time with him. And liking it.”

Harry stopped talking, suddenly afraid Neville would have something negative to say.

“I’m glad,” Neville said quietly. “After the war ended it all felt so… I hated the way we hadn’t any control. You know?”

Harry made a grumpy noise of assent.

“They just handed down all those sentences without actually putting anyone on trial. They confiscated Malfoy’s wand from you, since it was the wand that killed Voldemort. It took forever for me to convince them I no longer had Godric Gryffindor’s sword. It was like they thought I was lying! They made us all go back to Hogwarts, too. Not that I wasn’t hoping to go back and redo that awful year for real, and all, but….”

“Yeah,” Harry agreed quietly. “It properly hacked me off. That’s why I didn’t go into the Auror training programme, you know? They made me feel like I _had_ to in that letter! I _would_ be turning over that wand post haste, and I _would_ be returning to Hogwarts in September, and I _would_ then be passing NEWT level potions and starting the Auror training programme as soon as I completed Hogwarts. And at first I was all, you know, ‘yes sir, no sir, can I please just go sleep now sir,” but then I went to all those funerals and memorial services and… I realized that even with Scrimgeour gone, all I was to them was a little… hero puppet.”

“I felt the same way,” Neville sighed.

“That’s right,” Harry said slowly. “You mentioned last year, at the start of Hogwarts. They’d just up and _told_ you that you were going to be in the Auror programme. You never talked about it again. I’d forgotten about it completely. I’m sorry.”

“No need,” Neville said warmly, and batted at Harry with one hand. Harry pulled his arms from the tree trunk and patted him back.

“Ow,” Harry muttered, and sat up, rubbing at his arms. “Pins and needles.” Neville opened his eyes and grinned at Harry. _His_ hands were resting on his chest. Harry gave him a mock glare and Neville laughed kindly.

Suddenly Peytral appeared in the air over Harry and Neville, hooting frantically once, beating his wings as though he feared falling out of the sky.

Harry jumped awkwardly to his feet. “Sorry Neville,” he yelped, sounding upset, “Draco needs me!” He _Apparated_ out of the garden without further notice, a small popping noise the last thing Neville heard from him.

“What the hell just happened?” Neville asked the owl, now perched calmly on the bottommost branch of the plane.

Peytral didn’t answer, merely swirled his head in a large arc, then lifted off the branch and started to fly southwest.

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“Hey Hermione,” Neville said quietly, leaning down toward the table where Hermione was marking up printouts with a highlighter. 

“Oh, hullo, Neville,” Hermione said in a weary voice. “I’d no idea anyone knew where I was.” She looked at him wryly. “No one’s got a tracking spell on me now, right?”

Neville smiled. “Nothing that simple, I’m afraid. I had to ask your mum. She said this was the next place to try, if you didn’t answer the phone in your house.”

“Oh,” Hermione said with interest, sitting up and looking Neville in the eye. “You have a phone?”

“Er, yeah,” Neville said. Then he fished around in the pocket of his Muggle style trousers and pulled out a tiny little mobile.

“Wow,” Hermione breathed, and encouraged Neville closer. He sat at the table and handed her the phone. She gingerly picked it up. “It’s a flip, even! I’ve never seen one so little. My parents share one, but it’s mostly for dental emergencies. And it’s a lot bigger.”

“I love it,” Neville admitted shyly. “I’ve been writing this series of articles on magical backyard gardening techniques, and the pay wasn’t bad, and I thought… you know, the exchange rate is in my favour, and my grandmother would never let me install a regular phone in the house, so….”

“It looks brilliant,” Hermione sighed. “I wish I were earning money.” She turned away, toward the window. “Let’s get the hell out of this library,” she suddenly pleaded. “I’ve been cooped up all day, and it looks nice outside now.”

“It is,” Neville agreed. “The rain’s all dried up, the sun’s out… you’ll be glad of that heavy jumper though, it’s still early November.”

Hermione nodded at him and looked around for a moment. There wasn’t a single Muggle visible anywhere, so she pulled her wand down her sleeve enough to pack her satchel in a second’s burst of activity. There were outside and on their way to the closest Costa within minutes.

*XxX*

“So I feel like we’re making excellent progress, honestly I do,” Hermione sighed, kicking at the pebbles that lined the edges of her mother’s flower beds, “Malfoy… I mean _Draco_ , is at least as brilliant with potions as I thought he was. Harry’s actually helping him go faster now that he can get Draco plenty of fresh _Armeria maritima_ -”

“You mean ‘Sea Pink?’” Neville interrupted, a half-grin changing his voice.

“Yes,” Hermione huffed good naturedly. “Thrift, Sea Pink, Armeria maritima, _whatever_! I thought you, being a professional, would prefer the Latin name, that’s all!” Hermione twisted her mouth, then elbowed Neville once in the ribs for good measure.

“Quit that,” Neville laughed. “You’ll spill your hot chocolate!”

Hermione grumbled at him, but put her satchel on the grass and sat on the low stone wall that ran across the front of her yard. Neville sat as well, about two feet away, blowing and sipping at his hot tea.

“It’s funny you mention Draco,” Neville finally said. “I was at Harry’s earlier, out in his garden, hearing about what was on his mind, and….” Neville stopped.

Hermione waited patiently for a few seconds, but Neville still said nothing. “Is it bad?” she finally asked, feeling her concerns rise.

“No! No. I mean, I have no reason to think so, except… I’d better just tell you the whole story.”

Hermione nodded nervously and fussed with her cup, waiting for Neville to start again. This time it didn’t take long.

“Harry… spoke about Draco more than I expected. I know he’s become an important supplier of Draco's ingredients, and I figured out in September that they were becoming friends, why else would he come to that big dinner party, right?”

Hermione nodded, sipping. She had no idea where Neville was going, but if it concerned Harry, she was eager to hear it.

“Considering all that, I still hadn’t quite expected Draco to be in Harry’s thoughts quite so much.”

Frowning, Hermione finished her cocoa and waited for Neville to say more.

“On the other hand, I might be coloring the whole conversation with the way it ended, because that was a surprise.” Neville finished his tea and let his hand drop down. He wasn’t looking at Hermione anymore; now he was looking off into the distance, instead. “We were in the garden, lying on the dirt, talking, and an _owl_ just.…” he turned and faced her, and Hermione couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Neville look quite so lost. Which was funny, because there was a time, when they were eleven, when he had _always_ looked lost.

“Hermione, I have never, in my entire life as a wizard, seen an owl _Apparate_. But I think this one did. Because… it just appeared! Right over our heads! My eyes _were open_. And if that wasn’t bizarre enough, Harry obviously recognized the owl as Draco's. Because he jumps up, yells that Draco needs him, and _Apparates_ away without another word. And then the owl flies away. The end! I don’t know what to think.”

“Hm,” Hermione responded. “That’s the whole story?”

Neville nodded.

“Seriously, that’s everything?”

“I know,” Neville said. “It doesn’t make much sense to me, either. Well, except for Harry wanting to save someone. That I understand.”

Hermione nodded solemnly.

“What are you two talking about?” Ron asked.

“Ron!” Hermione and Neville chorused.

“Where did you come from, mate?” Neville said, and moved over further, so Ron could sit between him and Hermione.

“I usually _Apparate_ into the garden shed,” Ron said quietly. “Hermione’s mum and dad changed the lock for me, to open from the inside so I could get here easily but not alarm any Muggle neighbors.” He walked closer and sat between them on the stone wall. “Anyway, you said something about Harry wanting to save someone? Who this time?”

Neville glanced toward Hermione, who answered for him. “Draco, apparently. Do you know if Draco might be in some sort of trouble?”

“Haven’t heard anything,” Ron answered slowly, “though I think I’d be one of the last ones to hear, if he were. Why do you think Harry was trying to save Draco, anyway?”

“Well,” Neville said, “I was over there earlier, and we were talking – mostly about gardening – except Harry just kept bringing up Draco. And he’s sort of gardening _for_ Draco, so that wasn’t all that odd until this owl _Apparated_ into the garden and-”

“Owls can’t _Apparate_ ,” Ron interrupted.

“Well, if you’d seen this,” Neville said defensively, “you’d suddenly think they could too!”

“Hm,” Ron said, sounding very skeptical. “Anyway, what happened next?”

“Harry bounces up, yells ‘Draco needs me’ and vanishes! Haven’t heard from him since. That has to have been an hour ago now. At least.”

“Weird,” Ron agreed slowly. “I think… Hermione, can we go into your house? I want to send Harry a _Patronus_.”

“Oh, good,” Neville said, and exhaled loudly. “Look, you two don’t mind if I just hand this over to you, do you? I know I was there when he rushed off, but I don’t feel comfortable grilling Harry about this. We’re closer than we used to be, but no one is as close to him as you two. Okay?”

“Certainly,” Hermione said quickly, feeling like she’d been imposing on Neville. This was probably why he’d come looking for her in the first place, and she’d probably been ignoring all the signs that he wanted to say something. She really needed to work on that.

“No problem, mate,” Ron agreed easily, and reached to shake Neville’s hand.

“Hermione, may I use the shed to _Apparate_ out?”

“Sure, Neville,” Hermione agreed, hoping no neighbors were watching the parade in and out of her parents garden shed. She waved goodbye as he walked around toward her back yard. Then she let herself and Ron into the house.

Ron cast his _Patronus_ right away, to ask Harry if he was all right. Hermione made tea while they waited, but it wasn’t long at all before Harry’s stag bounded into her kitchen and told them “I’m fine, you two. I’ll apologize to Neville later. Don’t be paranoid you guys, seriously!”

“Sneaky little sod,” Hermione grumbled good naturedly. “I suppose we should have asked if Draco was all right, too,” she stirred a bit of milk into her tea.

Ron leaned forward toward Hermione and put his teacup down.

Her heart sank. Not nonsense about Draco again. “Oh, Ron,” Hermione tried, but Ron put his hand over hers and she stopped talking, surprised.

“I’m not going to say anything about Draco,” Ron said. Hermione’s eyebrow went up. “I understand why you would think that,” Ron said, “I really do. But… that’s not where I was going. It’s not about him at all. It’s about… us.”

Hermione smiled a little, blushing. Then, embarrassed, she picked up her teacup and sipped slowly, it almost felt like she was hiding behind it.

“I know I’m not as smart as you are, Hermione. Honestly, not many people are.”

Uncomfortable, Hermione put her teacup down and shook her head, but Ron put up a hand. “Please, I want to try to say everything before we have a conversation, okay?”

Hermione thought he had to be able to tell she was surprised, but she put her teacup down and nodded. She could wait. She was learning how to wait.

“I’m not as smart as you. You might want a boyfriend who is, but I want you to know I’m secure enough to date a woman as smart as you. And that I have other qualities that will make me the right man for you.”

He looked up at her, like he expected an interruption, but she just waited, eyes wide open with surprise, so he took a loud breath and then started again. “I’m very loyal,” he started. “And yes, I know I’ve had the occasional problem with that, but we met when we were eleven and I hope you can cut me some slack. I think I’ve been growing up a lot.”

Hermione nodded slowly, choosing not to argue the point. She was dying to know what else he was going to say.

“I’m a great strategist. Now, that might not seem like something that would make me a good boyfriend, but I think it does, see, because I’m good at thinking ahead and figuring things out. So I’ll always be working on ways to be a better boyfriend: trying to learn things that will help us, make choices that will be good for us, as a team.”

Hermione fiddled with her teacup a bit, but stayed quiet.

“I’m honest. You’ll always know what I’m thinking and feeling and I’ll always tell you the truth.”

Hermione forced herself just to sip tea.

“Also, I’m chivalrous. I hold doors and stuff like that, and that shows that I respect you. And,” he looked down, blushing, then he picked his head up and squared his shoulders. “I really care about you. I fancy you, very much. I’ll be good to you, Hermione, because I really want to be your boyfriend.” He stopped talking and reached for his teacup, but Hermione waited for him to sip and put it down. He still said nothing, and now he looked uncomfortable, so she reached for his hand.

“I’d like that,” she finally said. “But… that was some speech. Have you been talking to Neville or Luna or something?”

“No,” he said, calmer now, stroking her fingers with his. “I talked to my dad. He was really helpful. I, er,” he blushed and looked down for a moment, “I was probably quoting him rather a lot during all that, honestly.”

“Oh!” Hermione said, impressed. Her parents meant a great deal to her, but she was an only child. Ron usually spoke of his parents as the people who made the rules he didn’t want to follow, the people who worried about him far too much and hadn’t thought he could handle the responsibilities of war, or the people who needed him right now, because they were still working on getting over Fred’s death.

“My dad says my mum is loads smarter than he is, and that it really took work for him to get her to commit to him. He had to prove he could put her and their family first. He said you were smart enough to appreciate the good qualities I have, just like Mum appreciates him. And he said that being a good man goes a long way with women.”

Hermione opened her mouth, though other than a vague sense of agreement and feeling flattered, she had no idea what she was planning to say; but then Ron continued.

“Lastly, though, Dad said a woman really appreciates a man who knows how to cook dinner and then clean up after. So, may I make you dinner?”

Hermione decided right then and there that, not only was she giving Ron another try, but that Molly and Arthur were apparently _both_ a lot smarter than she’d ever given either of them credit for.

“I’d love that,” she said, grinning widely. She left a note on the table, they locked up her parents’ house, and then they _Apparated_ together to the alley behind the nearest Tescos.

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Harry’s arms were still tingling from pins and needles when he arrived – not outside the Malfoy gates as before, but right inside them. Before he looked down and saw her, Doffy had grabbed his left hand. 

“Doffy!” Harry yelled, feeling panicked, “what is it?”

Doffy didn’t answer, just whisked Harry to the back door of the Manor, near Draco's lab. It was like apparition and it also wasn’t. It felt sharper, somehow. Harry had to take his deep breath as Doffy was opening the door.

“Master Draco, sir!” Doffy yelled excitedly into the echoing hallway. “Looks who is here to see you, sir! Tis your friend Mr Harry Potter, sir!” She kept yelling as they rushed down the hall toward the laboratory door, and within seconds Snape once again rushed out of the lab. This time Harry couldn’t see Snape’s face at all, but seeing him… an idea felt like it was suddenly just out of reach. He didn’t know what it was, exactly, but there was something on the tip of his tongue. This wasn’t a coincidence. None of it. What was he missing?

He entered the lab and Doffy bowed once and vanished again.

Harry took another deep breath and looked for Draco. He saw him standing in the darkest corner of the lab. There was a lamp right next to him, too, but it was off.

“Hey Draco,” Harry said quietly.

“Hullo, Harry,” Draco said so quietly Harry barely heard him.

“Er, I’m er… the owl and the elf brought me here,” he tried. But Draco just shrugged. He was staring at the floor.

“I saw Snape run out of here like his cloak was on fire,” Harry tried, but Draco just stood there, silent.

“It seemed like… is Doffy trying to rescue you from Snape somehow?”

“Of course not,” Draco said quietly, but he never lifted his head or took his eyes from the floor.

Harry heard a place in his brain yell ‘bullshit!’ but he didn’t say it out loud. Instead, he tried a direct question, even though it felt like the wrong one. “Is Snape…” Harry felt that idea teasing at the edges of his mind. What the hell was going on between Snape and Draco? He felt his irritation rise. “Is Snape trying to… steal your research?” That sounded kind of stupid, but Harry was at a loss for anything else to ask. And this was the second time that owl and house elf had ripped him out of his garden to save Draco. What the hell would make a house elf do that? It had to be pretty big, surely?

“No,” Draco answered, almost inaudibly. “It’s nothing.” He stood up. “Honestly. Doffy is just… she’s just over-sensitive.” His voice gained a bit of confidence, but his hands were twisting around together. “She doesn’t understand Headmaster Snape. That’s all it is. It’s fine. You can go home.”

“Bullshit,” Harry finally said, his mouth full of anger. He started striding toward Draco, punctuating his words with loud footsteps and jabs of his wand, still out from his _Apparition_. “I don’t know what the fuck is going on, Draco, but Doffy was completely panicked. Hell, so was your owl. And dammit, so was I! You don’t have to tell me what’s going on if you don’t want to, but… dammit, I don’t know!” Harry slumped against the lab bench right behind him.

“Well neither do I,” wailed Draco. “I didn’t call you here!”

“Well, are you glad I’m here? Are you glad I interrupted whatever the hell was going on between you and Snape?”

“Yes,” Draco whispered to the floor. “I… yes. Thank you.”

“Hey,” Harry said, and reached out to take Draco's chin in his left hand and tip it up just enough so they could look one another in the eye. Then, embarrassed, he let go. But Draco was still looking at him, so he continued. “I wasn’t asking to be thanked. And I really don’t have to know,” Harry said, because Draco was still looking at him. “But… I’m afraid I won’t be able to keep saving you from it, whatever it is. One of these times, I won’t be home! Or something else will go wrong.” Something crazy came into Harry’s mind and he voiced it without giving it any thought. “Maybe you should come live with me.”

“What?” Draco said, sounding shocked. He backed up one step, but he was still looking at Harry.

“I dunno, it just came to mind!” Harry paused. Would that really be so bad, he wondered? It might actually be… really nice. He felt himself blush a little.

“I can’t move in with you,” Draco stammered. “That’s madness!”

“I know it’s sudden,” Harry agreed, “I wasn’t planning to suggest it! I mean, I wasn’t planning to have my afternoon chat with Neville interrupted either!”

“You were with Neville?” Draco asked, a slightly hysterical tinge in his voice.

“We were just talking!” Harry yelped. Then they both stared at each other. Harry wondered what the hell was going on. Draco looked like he didn’t know, either. How did he solve this?

Draco straightened his back slightly and moved slightly closer to Harry. “I couldn’t ask my parents if I could move out. It would hurt their feelings terribly. But… I could… my lab. Maybe I should think about possibly moving my lab there?”

“Yeah,” Harry said, a warm feeling spreading through his chest. “We could do that. I’d like to do that.”

“Sirs!” Doffy suddenly called out from the doorway. “I has brought the tea?”

“Thank you, Doffy,” Draco called in a clear voice. “That will be all.”

They walked together through the lab toward the tea tray, and Harry wondered what it would be like having Draco around all day every day, and how he could keep Draco from finding out about his well-dressing project. He’d have to hide it in the attic, or something….

“Ooh!” he couldn’t help exclaiming. “Chocolate biscuits!”

“And lemon creams, too,” Draco said, blushing the tiniest bit, and they each reached for their favourite.

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“Luna! I’m glad you’re here. You have to help me eat these cinnamon buns I just got out of the oven. I made lemon cream biscuits, earlier, and Draco threatened me with bodily harm if I brought anything else sugary downstairs to his lab!” 

Luna grinned hugely and levitated a bun off the baking sheet into her hand.

“I’d love to taste your domiciliary magic, Harry,” she said, and took an enormous bite of the steaming hot pastry, “but I came over because I was hoping you’d show me your….”

“Shhhh!” Harry laughed. “It’s in the attic. And don’t say anything!”

Luna smiled all the way up the stairs; licking at her teeth, covered with gooey icing sugar.

Harry unlocked the attic with no less than three different spells, brought Luna into the attic silently, then spelled the door shut. His joy nearly lit the room. “This thing is really cool, if I’m allowed to say so myself,” Harry breathed out, opening a dusty curtain that hung over the small window in the eave. Now the cloth covered frame was more visible, but Harry frowned and flicked his wand at it firmly. A jar of vibrant bluebell flames appeared over the frame and Harry carefully lifted the cloth with his own hands.

“Oooh!” Luna cooed. “That’s marvelous! I love the way it’s wrong!”

“Saw that, did you?” Harry agreed, not bothered at all by her blunt words. “When I realized I wanted Gryffindor tower right over the Slytherin dungeons, I had to redo nearly the whole damn thing, but I think I have the whole outline now. There’s so much more to do to make it really complete, but I think it will be done for sure before Beltane.”

Luna examined the whole picture intensely. “What else do you want to add? I see this large open space here in the sky, and then… what’s this negative space on the lawn near the lake?”

“Good eye!” Harry said appreciatively. He pointed to the open spot within the sky he’d made blue with a pastiche of blue petals, blue feathers, and blue eggshells. “I want to put a Gryffin in the sky, right here.” Then he pointed to the brown clay where lawn and lake should be. “Then here, I plan to add a really serpentine sort of dragon on the lawn. I found this amazing one in this Chinese illustration, here,” Harry said, turning to a book and opening it to a page he’d marked with a scrap of newspaper.

“It’s amazing,” Luna said quietly. “Will you make it bright red, like the one in the picture?”

“No,” Harry said. “I want to make it mostly silver, but I have to find something organic that’s silver coloured. Winter makes this harder. I gathered a tonne of material during spring, and I’ve used a lot of it… some of it was a total waste of my time, but… well… no silver yet. The griffin will be yellow gold though, and that I have plenty of scraps of autumn leaves for. So that’s all set!”

“It’s different to see you working so intently with your hands,” Luna said quietly. “I like it. Especially the baking,” she laughed. Then she sloppily downed the rest of her bun. There was icing sugar on her right hand and on her mouth. Harry surreptitiously wiped at his own mouth, but Luna didn’t take the hint.

“I like creating,” Harry said, feeling more solemn. “There was so much destroying.” He frowned, but Luna was still upbeat.

“It’s a wonderful choice. And this is a wonderful well-dressing. My mum would have loved this. Honestly,” Luna said, putting her large eyes within inches of the clay, “it’s hard to believe the real Hogwarts Castle isn’t just like this, now that I see your version. I only have to look at this for a few moments and I can feel my own mind-pictures warping.” She looked at Harry, suddenly confused. “This thing doesn’t have a Legilimency charm on it, does it?”

Harry beamed at her mad idea and crossed his arms over his chest. “That’s one hell of a compliment, Luna. Thank you!” Then he frowned and cleared his throat, hesitating. “But, er, could you please not get any icing sugar on it?”

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Harry was bending over staring into the oven – the cake was almost ready for the toothpick test, he decided – when he felt Draco's eyes on his back. He grinned and closed the oven door quietly, stood up, and then turned around. “You can’t have any cake yet, Draco. It isn’t done.” He sniffed ostentatiously at the air. “It smells good, though, doesn’t it? Hell, it even pulled you out of your lab!” 

Draco blushed a pale tinge of pink and sat at the table. “I, er. I enjoy chocolate on occasion,” he finally agreed.

“And I enjoy lemon,” Harry said, his face splitting wide with amusement. “Which is why this chocolate cake is positively bursting with lemon cream filling.” He put his hands on the table and leaned across to Draco, sitting three chairs away. “You can have some for pudding if you stay for dinner.”

“Another dinner party?” Draco looked far more relaxed. “I’d like that very much. I’d be happy to stay.”

Harry frowned for a moment, then felt himself blush. That hadn’t been what he meant at all, he realized. “Uh, of course. Right. Very impromptu dinner party. Can’t let all this cake go to waste. It’ll be brilliant.” He turned to the side and _Summoned_ a pad and ancient ballpoint pen from a drawer. On it he wrote:  
Ron and Hermione  
Luna and Dean  
Neville and Hannah  
Padma, Parvati, Seamus, Lee Jordan

“Kreacher?” he called. Kreacher popped into the kitchen and attempted a creaky bow. “Thanks!” Harry said happily. “Could you see how many of these friends can join us for dinner at 8:30 tonight? I’m sure they won’t all be able to make it, but I hope some of them can.”

Kreacher took the list and looked at it. “Dinners for twelve, hmm. Fancy or not, sir?”

“Very casual,” Harry said quickly. “I don’t want to burden you.” He tapped his chin. “You know what would be fun, if you think it would be easy? Breakfast for dinner.”

“Eggs, pancakes, bacon and kippers, sir?”

“Skip the kippers and you’ve got it, Kreacher!” Harry said happily. “Won’t that be fun, Draco?”

Draco looked pleased to have been asked. “Add some real Canadian maple syrup, and you have yourself a real ‘breakfast for dinner’ party!”

“Sir,” Kreacher said when he saw Harry’s satisfaction. He popped out of the kitchen again.

“I, uh, don’t know how well that’s going to go with chocolate lemon cake,” Harry said suddenly.

“Don’t be silly, Harry. A cake like that goes with _everything_.” Draco grinned, then he looked down at the table.

Harry looked at him, then looked down at the table himself. He could still see Draco's hands.

Draco traced a spiral on the table top. “I, er, should get more work done before all those guests start to show up.”

“Oh, er, of course,” Harry said. He couldn’t figure out why he sounded suddenly depressed, even if he _had_ been planning to share the cake with Draco alone. “I understand,” he said, trying to reverse his tone and failing.

“Right,” Draco said awkwardly, looking sideways. He stood up. “Can’t wait for some of that cake!”

“Right!” Harry said, and stood as well. “I guess I should, uh, tidy up?”

“Of course,” Draco said, and stepped backward, but with only one foot. “Don’t let me keep you from that.”

“Of course not,” Harry said wistfully, and Draco returned to his magically enhanced lab in Harry’s basement.

“What the fuck just happened?” Harry whispered at the table. No one answered, so he stood and opened the oven again. The toothpick came out clean and he levitated the cake onto the counter and put a stasis charm on it. Then he went up to work on the well-dressing project. Kreacher would be able to find him, and he’d try to keep track of the time. He loved dinner parties, dammit. He’d get into the mood before all his guests arrived. No matter what.

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Hermione was just lifting a seventh book from her stack when Sozo tapped gently at her second story window. 

“Hey girl,” Hermione said as she rose to let her owl into her bedroom. “Did Professor Snape agree to meet me at Costa?” She took the scroll from her owl’s leg and caressed Sozo’s buff and brown streaked head. Sozo softly called out her pleased “waowk” and neatly flew the two feet to her perch and bowl. She hissed half-heartedly at Crookshanks, who rolled away, ignoring her. “Pretty girl,” Hermione said absently as she carefully opened the scroll.

**_Miss Granger,_ **

**_I would be agreeable to a meeting tomorrow at 1pm, but not in the Muggle world, please. Instead I suggest the fourth floor of the very fine wizarding library under the Tower of London. If you are not familiar with it, you can easily gain access via a free intra-London portkey supplied by the portkey office in the ministry, or you can Floo there by requesting “Tower Library, Underneath.”_ **

**_Sincerely,_ **

**_Severus Snape_ **

*XxX*

The next morning Hermione _Apparated_ to the Burrow for lunch with Ron and his mum, then Flooed into the library bursting with curiosity. How was it that she had never heard of this place before?

Her satchel was carefully packed with quills and pens, loose paper, parchment, and a Muggle notebook of lined pages. She carried her heavily marked up copy of _Circle of Poison: Pesticides and People in a Hungry World_ , as she usually did these days, but she’d also brought three old copies of Borage’s potions texts that she’d unpacked from a box in the back of her closet. She had her fourth, sixth and seventh year texts and was still slightly annoyed that her fifth year text had not been in the box with the rest.

She was a little early, so she also had the latest translated edition of _Revista mensual de la investigación de pociones, Sociedad de Pociones de Madrid_ in her bag as well. Draco had highly recommended it.

“Miss Granger, I presume?”

The voice was friendly, but creaky with age. Hermione turned in surprise. She’d not been expecting to be greeted by name.

“Yes, Ma’am, I am Hermione Granger,” she answered quietly.

The librarian looked to be at least two hundred years old. She wore vivid purple robes and the most vivacious red hat Hermione had ever seen in person. It had more than red flowers and feathers. It had its own live – or at least magically created – small, purplish black bird. Among all that colour, it was hard to see the librarian’s face. The silent, hopping bird kept dragging Hermione’s eyes away. She felt quite rude and attempted to refocus.

The librarian was fanning three pamphlets out on a small table. “Headmaster Snape told me you would be arriving this afternoon. He told me you would have questions.”

“Yes, Ma’am!” Hermione agreed, and the lady pushed the pamphlets toward Hermione. “Where can I find the headmaster?”

The ancient witch turned, her silken robes shimmering, and pointed down the main aisle of the library. On her small hand, the faceted purple stone on her right ring finger looked as big as a goose egg. “The lift is at the end of that corridor,” she said. “Take it to the fourth floor and follow the signs to the Silent Room. Headmaster Snape told me he planned to wait for you there.”

Hermione followed the instructions and soon found herself opening the glass door to a glass encased room that seemed to be suspended over the centre of the entire library. She felt shushing charms settling around her like a knitted blanket and smiled. Though the floor looked like clear glass as well, her footsteps were completely inaudible. She suddenly felt a flush of relief that she’d chosen to wear slacks, though presumably her modesty would have been magically preserved if she’d unwittingly chosen robes or a skirt.

Snape was sitting at a large table near the door and she sat in the chair he had pulled out for her, on his right. She noticed that he had a stack of books and papers off to his left, and a large scroll of parchment between them. She put her satchel on the table and looked at him. He pointed at the parchment, so she pulled it slightly closer. There was a paragraph at the top, and she read it silently to herself, growing increasingly delighted.

Snape: Miss Granger, I have reflected upon your advice and determined that a great deal of it was quite sound. Thus, I first applied myself to making it easier to communicate while my injuries continue to heal. These words appeared on this paper as I thought them, not because I wrote them down with a quill. If you wish, tap your wand to this paper and whisper the spell “ _Communicatus_ ” to make your own thoughts or whispered words appear as well. If you so choose we will have a full transcript of today’s conversation, which I expect I might later appreciate. It is, however, your decision.

Hermione tapped the parchment and whispered the spell as quietly as possible, even though they were alone in the Silent Room. Then, she tried it out. She directed her thoughts to this fascinating new spell, and to their meeting. Nothing appeared on the paper, so she tried forming a sentence, and “speaking” it into her own thoughts. Then, it appeared. She smiled, realizing that Snape had wisely created a spell that only recorded the thoughts someone fully intended to record.

Granger: Headmaster, I am so pleased that you chose to try to create this spell and even more excited that it worked. I like that I have to consciously direct my thoughts to appear, I like that we will have a transcript, and I feel positively smug that you are so brilliant at this. I knew you would be.

Hermione paused, but Snape’s words did not appear, so she continued, asking something she’d been wondering since Sozo had returned with his letter.

I had never heard of this library before and I want to learn all about it. I saw very few people here. Is it some sort of secret?

This time she waited almost no time before his words began to appear on the parchment.

Snape: It is not well known, but it is not a secret. One must, however, have a membership to research here. Or even to enter. However, a written invitation from a member is a suitable replacement, though no more than two or three times a year. I could sponsor you for membership?

Granger: Yes, please do.

Snape: I thought you would like that. It is truly an excellent library. I would say it is as good as the Hogwarts library, including the restricted and faculty sections. At any rate, that is only a small part of why I wished to meet with you. I have been reflecting on everything you … insisted to me at your parent’s table. And upon the wonders of the internet itself. I agree that more spells need to be invented, and that better potions books need to be written. And I agree that I am the man for one of those jobs, but only for one of them. 

Snape took a deep breath and Hermione waited calmly, watching the parchment. She had a sudden realization that it was profoundly less stressful to communicate with Snape this way. She had a perfectly good reason not to look at his sullen expression or hear his damaged voice. The past could be such a burden. She frowned at the parchment and his words began to appear again. She read them with empathy and excitement.

I have decided to move to Vancouver, Canada. There I will begin writing a 7th year potions text suitable for a new Hogwarts potions curriculum. Once the 7th book is complete, I feel I will be able to craft the other, six, supporting books. I must decide exactly what the culmination should be, and then I feel I will be able to choose potions and lessons that will assist all students in mastering all the concepts and connections necessary to fully complete the 7th year curriculum with the sort of deep understanding of all potions theory that any Hogwarts graduate should possess.

Granger: That all sounds very beneficial, but you said you also thought more spells should be invented. And I don’t think I am the one for _that_ job, so who is?

Snape: I do not know, but I think that the best way to facilitate all such endeavors: yours, mine, and this third, are to start a funding foundation that will raise money for such purposes and spend it on helping them come to fruition.

I have reflected upon this as well, and I think that with some of my money, some of Harry Potter’s money, and under Lucius Malfoy’s leadership, such a foundation could fill in a few of the large gaps you have shown me that exist here in our world.

Granger: Lucius Malfoy? Really? Why him? Please pardon my incredulity, but… well, apparently I am simply incredulous.

Snape: I understand, but I hope you can accept that Draco's father is actually quite perfect for this job. For one thing, he has superior skills with political maneuvering, shall we say. More bluntly, I would say he knows how to convince people and make them feel it was their idea. He knows essentially every wealthy and influential person in our world, as well. I will admit that more of those people than ever before have at least a slightly negative opinion of Lucius, but I can also assure you that reestablishing his family’s reputation is of paramount importance to him. More important, at the moment he sees no way to personally work toward that goal. He is extremely proud of Draco's work with you, but he has no such work for himself. This work would enhance Draco's work with you, and would give Lucius something to do to enhance his own and his family’s reputations. He would naturally be good at such work, but as things stand in the world, he will be strongly motivated to be fantastic. I believe he would jump at the chance.

Granger: You have not asked him?

Snape: No, I felt it important to speak to you first. Your and Draco's research would be a large recipient of the foundation’s money, possibly for several years. I know Draco can work with his father, but I needed to know if you can.

Hermione stared through the floor at the witches and wizards she could see walking around below. Could she work with Lucius Malfoy? Probably. Maybe. If it were all on a professional level. If he apologized. If it was mostly via owl.

She was pretty sure agreeing was the mature thing to do.

She looked at the paper but none of her thoughts had materialized there yet. She breathed a small sigh of relief.

Granger: I believe I would require a formal apology from him. And I think… I think I would prefer it to be written, not delivered in person.

Snape: I will request that of him. And then you could work with him? There might not be much interaction required. He should probably hire someone to review all the grant proposals. I was envisioning him far more as a fund raiser than a grant giver. Truthfully, you are the person most qualified for that job. (It did not slip my notice that you are the one who solved the logic-based barrier to the Philosopher’s Stone.) And after you, Draco. But the conflict of interest would be impenetrable as long as your pesticide research continues, I should think.

Granger: I agree. I could not do both things even if there were no conflict of interest. But I wonder if Neville Longbottom would be interested? And how did you make those parenthesis appear? All my commas and ellipses seemed to be responses to pauses in my thinking.

Snape: I had not considered him. He might well be a worthy choice. And I always “think out” the word for the grammatical indicator.

Granger: Thank you, I see now. I would like to attempt to summarize what we have discussed.

Snape: Certainly.

Granger: You are moving to Vancouver, Canada. There you will be funded by the foundation we intend to start, while you write books of potions curriculum and instruction.

I will remain here in England and the foundation will also fund the research Draco and I have begun to attempt to clean the world’s food supply. We expect this project to be extremely long term.

The foundation will begin with money from Severus Snape and, if he agrees, Harry Potter. The subsequent funding will be raised by Lucius Malfoy, should he agree to take the position.

The foundation will need to hire a person to review grant proposals. The first person we approach to apply will almost certainly be Neville Longbottom.

The foundation will need a name. May I propose the Eileen Prince Memorial Fund for the Study of all Scientific Magic? 

Snape did not respond, and Hermione felt her face heat. She had thought that would be a nice gesture, and also a decidedly neutral one. Eileen Prince may have been the mother of a Death Eater turned spy turned murderer slash mercy killer turned wounded warrior hero, but she’d died long before the second war began. And she’d married a Muggle. But her son still hadn’t put a single response down on that parchment.

Granger: I apologize. Clearly that was overstepping and I --

Snape: No, I should be the one to apologize. I simply… oh, look, it does add ellipses when I pause. I am sorry for alarming you. My mother would have been honoured, I believe, and I am as well. I should have realized you would have found a way to research her name. But it had not occurred to me. I formally accept your proposal. Tonight we found the Eileen Prince Memorial Fund for the Study of all Scientific Magic. I formally donate eight thousand galleons.

Hermione gasped out loud, and felt the charms of the room softly muffle and contain her noise. It felt oddly friendly.

Granger: That is a remarkably generous sum.

Snape: Teaching pays adequately, but the benefits package of free room, board and medical care more than make up for it. Not to mention, Canadian wizards use Canadian dollars, and the exchange rate and housing differential are very much in my favour.

Hermione tipped her head to look at Snape, and was not much surprised to see that he wore a nearly Malfoy-worthy smirk.

Snape: So, shall we wrap up here for now? I should like to bring you downstairs to the front desk and get you signed up for a lifetime membership here, if you are still agreeable. Then, if you like, you can stay all day.

Granger: I gratefully accept, Headmaster!

Snape: Please call me Severus. I wish to leave my Hogwarts days behind. 

Hermione rose, shaking her head and smiling. The least formal she thought she could manage would be ‘Sir’ for now, and probably for years to come.

The purple librarian, Mrs Prollery, was as lovely as her robes, and far more helpful than her hat. Professor Snape slipped away at some point while Hermione was peppering her with questions about the library’s collection, and hours, and rules, and spells.

She spent hours there that first day, increasingly excited by everything the library, and the shockingly competent Mrs Prollery who ran it (and had done so for sixty-two years), could offer a bookish witch. Hermione was especially thrilled to meet Rowan Bóc, Head of the library’s Acquisition and Spells department.

“I’d very much like to talk to you, Mr Bóc,” she confessed as he walked her to the Floo. “Do you think Mrs Prollery would mind if you did a little moonlighting on the side? There are some spells I think I’ll need desperately, and they’re all related to books, and libraries....”

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“Harry?” 

Harry was kneeling in the dirt under the plane tree, trying to determine if the tiny shoot growing in an unexpected place was something he had planted, or a weed he should pull. He turned and looked over his shoulder, grinning when he saw Draco on the back steps, apparently awaiting permission to step off and into the garden proper. Harry straightened his back and twisted around, waving Draco over. “What’s up, Draco?”

“I’ve run out of redcurrant. I was hoping you might have some more ready so I can render acid from them. Citric acids are proving extremely productive.”

Harry frowned and moved from kneeling, down to cross-legged. “I’m sorry, Draco. I don’t have anything at all on the redcurrant bush. I can plant more, I have the space, but there won’t be berries for a good long while. You took everything I had a few days back.”

Draco sat gingerly on the dirt and picked up a twig. He twirled it in the earth, making spirals and figure eights. “I did, didn’t I? I should have realized ages ago that non-magical fruit acids were a smart thing to try. I’ve moved completely into Muggle-safe plants and substances now, did I tell you that? There’s plenty there to work with and it just completely sidesteps that awful problem we were contemplating of what the hell to do about the statute of secrecy. Avoiding magic looks like it will be the perfect solution to that!”

They both laughed quietly, and Draco zig-zagged the twig a little closer to Harry’s knee, then further away, then closer again. Harry just watched it dance in Draco's hand. He felt no need to speak. They’d become so comfortable with one another.

His friendship with Draco had unexpectedly, while he wasn’t really looking, become one of the sweetest things in his life. Shocker. He was oddly happy these days.

“There’s something,” Draco began very quietly, and Harry did not interrupt.

“Something I’ve been meaning to tell you.” Draco’s voice was ragged. Tentative. He sounded miserable and determined. “Wanting to tell you. To explain, I suppose?” He stopped talking and Harry waited. He couldn’t think of a thing to say. He was pretty sure he knew what this was about.

“It’s, well. It’s about Snape.” Draco's eyes stayed on the little twig, which he was still dragging through the dirt. Therefore, he didn’t see Harry’s sad and knowing nod.

“He… well. I mean I….” Draco stopped again. His breathing had gone a bit funny. He rubbed at his face briefly and Harry lay back on the earth, clouds and the plane tree shielding his eyes from the March sunlight.

“It’s probably not important at all,” Draco suddenly blurted.

“No?” Harry asked. But that was all he said. He couldn’t think of anything else.

“No. Yes?” Draco turned away and stared at the high fence between Harry’s yard and the neighbor’s. He scrubbed a hand through his hair. Then he lay back on the earth, next to Harry and sighed almost silently. “I’m sorry, Harry. I thought I was ready. I want to be ready. I want it to be over.”

“It’s all right, Draco.” Harry reached over and found Draco's hand with his own. He took it, and squeezed it, and held on. “I don’t need to hear it more than you need to say it. And I’ll still be here whenever you do turn out to be ready. Okay?”

Draco squeezed Harry’s hand. This time he didn’t say anything, and they rested together in the weak March sunlight for a long time, silent but comfortable under the big, old, plane tree. Holding hands as though they did it every day.

Eventually Harry felt Draco shiver. He was chilled himself. “Want to go inside?” he asked quietly. “I think I need a pot of tea, to warm up. The sun is still setting pretty early these days.”

They got up and spelled the dirt off one another’s backs. Then they headed for the kitchen.

Harry put the kettle under the tap and filled it. While he was putting it on the hob, Draco spoke.

“Thank you for being with me while I tried to do that. It means a lot to me. The way you just listened; and waited. You know?”

Harry turned on the fire under the kettle and turned around. “Hermione would have had a lot to say, or Luna. But I couldn’t think of anything. I thought being silent was bad when a friend needed you. It wasn’t bad?”

“Talking isn’t always everything it’s cracked up to be. I really appreciated the silence. There was no… pressure in it. You know?”

The kettle began to whistle and Harry made the tea quietly, contemplating the idea that, by embracing his incompetence instead of fighting it, he’d actually been a more competent friend than at almost any other time he could think of. So next time, maybe it wouldn’t feel like incompetence at all.

By the time he’d brought the tea to the table Draco had gathered a tin of biscuits that Harry had baked, plates, saucers, spoons and teacups. Harry took the sugar bowl out of the cupboard and got the creamer of milk from the fridge, and they sat down together.

They didn’t talk about Snape at all.

Draco went home to eat dinner with his parents.

Harry cleaned up the tea without Kreacher. Then he went upstairs with an inspiration. He wanted to dig out that peacock feather Draco had given him all those months ago and add it to the silver shell fragments and bits of silver birch bark taking a dragon’s shape on the lawn of his Hogwarts well-dressing project.

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“Harry! It’s incredible!” 

“Thanks, Luna.” Harry couldn’t help but feel a swelling of pride. He’d worked his arse off on this huge project, all winter long. Draco would be so impressed with Harry’s “pureblood savvy,” he was certain. “I’m so glad you suggested I try this,” he told his friend, as she walked back and forth in front of the large clay frame, now craning her neck, now bending down. She clearly wanted to see every inch of the project. Silently, Harry challenged her to find a single flaw, anywhere on the whole thing.

“It’s been a really fun project, especially for those times when I didn’t have any pressing work in the garden.” He frowned as he remembered feeling ill a few times. “Well, except for all the pesticides. Getting involved with Draco and Hermione’s project has really made it clear to me how contaminated the natural world has become. It makes me want to find a way to hit the whole well-dressing project with some sort of specialized _Evanesco_ or something, you know? To remove anything that could make us sick. But of course, we don’t have a spell for that. Not yet. I know Hermione is working on that.” Harry sighed and reached out a hand to Luna, who stepped away from the huge picture of Hogwarts and took Harry’s hand in her own. They both looked at the well dressing.

Luna squeezed Harry’s hand once. “Do you think they will succeed?”

“Yes,” Harry said with complete conviction. He squeezed Luna’s hand once and then let go and turned to face her. “Come on. Draco and Hermione? Teamed up? What could possibly stop a team like that?” They both grinned. “The problem isn’t _will_ they succeed, it’s _when_. You know? This problem is enormous. I think those two are going to be busy with this for a long time. Luckily I think that new Eileen Prince Fund looks like it’s all going to work out, you know?”

“Has Neville agreed to take the job?” Luna asked.

“You know,” Harry said slowly, “I don’t know! But he’s bringing Hannah tonight. We can ask him. When did Dean say he’d arrive?”

Luna cast _Tempus_. “In six and a half minutes,” she said in a slightly dreamy voice.

“Luna!” Harry said, fake-shocked. “You sound completely enchanted!”

“Yes,” Luna agreed enthusiastically, and twirled in a big circle, her voluminous skirt narrowly missing the lower corner of the well dressing project. Harry cast _Protego_ on it. He hoped she hadn’t seen.

“He’s wonderful, Harry. It’s wonderful. I never thought I’d have a boyfriend.” She smiled at him, and it was dazzling. Her hair caught a shaft of sunlight and Harry blinked. He’d never seen her look so ethereal, and – he thought – that was really saying something, when it was Luna.

*XxX*

“To Ginny’s promotion in the Australian Quidditch league!” Ron said in a happy voice that didn’t match his face. “Yes,” everyone agreed enthusiastically, knowing how much Ron missed Ginny. “To Ginny! To Quidditch! To her great new job!”

“To Neville’s fantastic new job!” Hannah called out, and everyone drank.

“I can hardly wait to write it all up in The _Quibbler_!” Luna said.

Hermione grinned widely and raised her own glass again. “Welcome aboard! We couldn’t have hired a better person to allocate the grants.”

“I’m looking forward to it, Hermione. Now we just need money. And grant proposals for me to mark up with red ink!”

Everyone laughed. “What a spring this is!” Seamus began, but apparently Hermione wanted to interrupt him. “To spring!” Hermione chanted, and everyone raised their glasses once again.

“To spring rain!” Neville joked, and everyone drank once more.

“You do realize this is England,” Hannah said dryly. “It’s always raining, not just in spring!” She smirked at Neville, who smiled hugely and put his arm around her.

“To the gardens we can have from all this lovely English rain!” Harry toasted.

“Yes, yes,” Dean said in a mock tone of annoyance. “Gardens are nice, but I say, let’s toast to the _love_ that grows in the warmth and beauty of spring!”

“Hear, hear!” all the couples toasted, and everyone again drank deeply of their wine and beer. Hermione snuggled Ron, Luna smiled shyly at Dean, who kissed her cheek, Neville pulled Hannah closer, and Seamus kissed Lee Jordan smack on the lips, loud enough to make everyone giggle. 

Then Seamus turned to Harry and Draco, and crossed his arms over his chest, pretending (badly) to look stern. “And you two? When are you going to admit reality?”

Harry felt himself go bright red, and poor Draco, well Harry just wanted to hide his friend’s face in his own chest, and wrap him with his own arms and under his own head, because Draco looked mortified. “Cake anyone?” he heard himself ask in a strangled voice, and he jumped up from the table abruptly, shaking his chair. Draco caught it and it didn’t fall over. Harry went to the sideboard and uncovered the huge chocolate lemon swirled bundt cake he’d made that afternoon.

“Don’t be an arse, Seamus,” Ron grumbled in a quiet voice.

“Don’t push the Griggle fairies,” Luna said sweetly to Seamus. “They work in their own time. I’m sure you know that.”

“I think I’ll go make the tea,” Draco said in a formal tone, and he ran to the kitchen.

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“I’m really sorry, Harry.” Draco looked miserable and Harry wanted to hug him and fix it. Instead he tried to smile really warmly. 

“It’s okay, Draco. I think it’s thoughtful of them. And I’m sure I’ll manage. Hermione said she would come, too, after all.”

“I made them promise to host the dinner on the garden patio. I’ll have you know, Mum and Father looked really guilty when I reminded them what Aunt Bellatrix did to Hermione in the very room where they were planning to serve her a fancy meal!”

Harry was pretty sure he should feel terrible for doing so, but he couldn’t help laughing out loud at the looks he was imagining on Draco's parents’ faces.

Draco laughed a little too, when he realized Harry was.

Feeling strangely confused and hopeful, Harry reached for Draco's hand. Draco let him take it. “It’s going to be fine, Draco. Your parents mean well, and it makes sense. Your dad should get a sense of what Hermione is actually like if he’s going to be spending his days trying to fund her research, and I couldn’t let her go without me if Ron’s not invited.”

Draco looked guilty for a moment and Harry shook his head ‘no’ to try to wipe that off Draco's face. “Of _course_ Ron isn’t invited. Hermione’s sure to talk to Snape all night, and Snape only ever writes anymore. And Ron isn’t a part of this insane research you two are doing. I actually am, and very glad to be helping. It all makes sense and I’m not upset with your parents for wanting the dinner party. I’m not upset with you for asking Hermione and me to _come_ to the dinner party.” Harry took a deep breath and squeezed Draco's hand once before letting go. “And I am _really glad_ you asked your parents to move dinner to the patio.”

They smiled at each other and then Draco quickly Flooed home. Harry went upstairs to try to figure out what the hell to wear to dinner at Malfoy Manor. Tomorrow night!

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“To research!” Father bellowed. His wine sloshed a bit as he raised his glass, and some slopped onto his robes. He looked at it, confused for a moment, then Doffy appeared and cleaned him up in a millisecond and Father seemed to forget all about it. He drank deeply from his wine glass. Again. 

A terrible disadvantage of the patio, Draco thought miserably, was how small it was. They were six people seated at a table _for six_. The spells controlling the weather meant expansion was out of the question. He was more accustomed to eating dinner at a table for twenty or so; which meant a great deal more physical distance from his drunken father. Tonight in contrast felt more like sitting in his father’s liquor soaked lap. It was awful.

Dinner was nearly over, thank Merlin. Before Father had started to lose crispness in his voice and thoughts, he had been positively pride inducing. He’d asked intelligent questions of Hermione and treated her with what looked, even to Draco, like honest, real respect.

He had been gracious to Harry, and though he still had never apologized for everything he and his horrible “Lord” had done to Draco's new business partner and new best friend, he had implied three times, in various ways, that he was grievously sorry. It had all been so subtle, and Draco had still been so damn nervous, that he couldn’t really remember how Father had even said it anymore. Only an hour later! But he’d counted all three times. It really had happened. Father really hadn’t lost his edge. Well, not when he was sober. He was sober fewer and fewer nights these days.

Draco sighed and looked over at his mum. Then he wished he’d done nothing of the sort. Mum’s spine was so straight it could have won an iron rod impersonation contest. Her face was white beneath her subtle makeup and jade jewelry. Her smile seemed to have emigrated to Antarctica. He hoped their guests couldn’t tell, but his mother was embarrassed and deeply miserable. He wished he could squeeze her hand or something.

Harry leaned over and tapped Draco's wrist. “Can you show me to the WC,” he said, sounding embarrassed. “I still can’t find my way around this place at all.”

Grateful, Draco smiled at Harry and stood up. Harry stood as well, and, possibly misunderstanding, Hermione stood.

“It’s getting late,” Hermione said sweetly. “I should be getting home. Dinner was brilliant, truly, Mrs Malfoy. The salmon was the best I’ve ever tasted, and the green beans were truly perfect. Who knew vegetables could be so tasty only lightly steamed? I shall have to ask my own parents to try them that way.”

“What a lovely young lady you are,” Mum said in a generous voice. “Let me walk you to the Floo. Severus, will you be heading home as well?”

Snape stood and nodded, and everyone except Father began to walk toward the doors that led inside.

“Thank you all so much for coming!” Father called loudly as they opened the doors. As though he was only just now realizing they’d all left him sitting alone at the patio table. They began to walk inside. “Narcissa and I hope you’ll all come again soon! Such a lovely night!” The doors closed behind the last of the five of them.

“Mum,” Draco said quietly. “I’ll just show Harry to the WC first, before we walk to the front gates. All right? Dinner was delicious.” She nodded and he bent down and kissed his mother’s cheek. When had he become so much taller than Mum?

He and Harry turned left down the corridor and the other three turned right. The bathroom was only two doors down, but there was a small study of sorts right across the hall, and Draco planned to wait for Harry there.

He was looking out the window at the first of the night’s stars, when Harry entered the room a few minutes later. The door was open but Harry knocked anyway, and Draco found himself surprisingly grateful for such thoughtful behavior. Especially since he still hadn’t told Harry much of anything about “the Snape situation,” and he was certain Harry had not guessed on his own. He turned away from the stars and smiled at Harry.

“Dinner turned out fine,” Harry said quietly, reassuringly; approaching him silent-footed on the thick, old carpet.

“Please, Harry. We’re alone. You can be honest. My father….” He sighed.

“So he likes to celebrate a little. Don’t we all, now that the war is over and death isn’t around every damn corner?” Harry stared out the window so Draco did as well. “Besides, he was fine for the first, what, three fourths of the evening? So what if he got a little, er, relaxed later. All the business stuff was long over by then, right?”

“Well,” Draco conceded. “I suppose I could try to look at it that way. It’s only, he does this all the time these days. Mum and I have no idea what to do.”

“Honestly, Draco, what can you do? He’s the father. You’re the kid. Just… we’re only just now learning to be responsible for ourselves. I guess your father… has to learn that too? Only in a new way.”

“In a new world,” Draco agreed. “Yes, I can see that. Anyway, let me walk you to the front gate so you can _Apparate_ home. Or did you prefer to Floo? Funny how Mum assumed Hermione would want to Floo, when I don’t think she _can_ Floo home. Right?”

They turned and headed out of the room, and down the hallway toward the back door, past Draco's old lab. Draco knew Harry preferred to leave and enter the house this way, whenever possible.

“You’re right,” Harry said. “She either explained to your mum and _Apparated_ home to her own mum and dad, or – more likely – she Flooed to Ron’s house first. It’s only.…” they left the house and walked into the soft night. Harry cast _Tempus_. “Nine fifteen or so. So Hermione probably Flooed over to the Burrow to say goodnight to Ron, and maybe even let Molly feed her a touch of pudding.”

“Pudding? Really? After six courses at my house?”

“It makes Molly feel better,” Harry said quietly. They walked around the side of the house and now they could see the gate. The moonlight illuminated the yard. Draco smiled. He still loved these grounds. He was learning again, slowly, to love the whole house. That was going to take him a while. He wondered fleetingly how long it might take Harry to appreciate the place.

“Oh, yes, of course.” Draco sighed. All the parents were a little broken and weird these days. He should know that by now. It was why he hadn’t seen Pansy in months. Her mother had insisted that the four of them: both parents and both kids, do a huge tour of all the most famous (“meaning trite as hell,” Pansy had groused) Magical Tourism spots of all China, Japan, the Middle East and northern Africa.

No one their age had dared point out that this meant Pansy was going to see Egypt long after Ron Weasley’s poverty-stricken parents. No one Pansy’s mum’s age seemed willing to point out that Pansy’s brother Willem was therefore missing his first year of Hogwarts.

Everyone was coming out of the war their own way.

They were almost at the gate and Draco patted Harry’s shoulder. Harry was taller than Draco's mum, but he was a lot shorter than Draco. Funny how a few years back, Draco would have gloated about that. Now he thought it was kind of cute. Not that he was ever going to say that out loud to _anyone_. Especially Harry.

When Draco let go of Harry’s shoulder, Harry somehow caught hold of Draco's hand and held on. Then, instead of walking directly to the gate, he pulled Draco just a touch to the right. There was a spot there, where the hedges grew very thick, and a large tree overshadowed and blocked out the moon.

Harry rested his back against the tree, and faced the hedge and gate. Draco had yet to let go of Harry’s hand.

“Last week,” Harry began, “when everyone was over, and Seamus… said that stuff….”

Draco felt his face heat. “Don’t give it another thought,” he interrupted. “I wouldn’t ever, I mean I couldn’t expect, I mean, I know you aren’t, er… right.” He gave up and looked at his house. “I should go back inside.”

“No!” Harry blurted. “Not yet, okay?”

“No?” Draco said. They were still holding hands and Draco couldn’t figure out how to let go and fly into his house without looking like a total coward. But this was going to be _so_ embarrassing.

“No,” Harry said, and he looked hopeful and confused. “Not yet. I want… to say… I _like_ Seamus. He’s _smart_. Do you see what I mean?” Harry sounded hopeful and _miserable_ now.

“Oh, sure,” Draco agreed, desperately wishing to free his hand and owl Seamus a few thousand dungbombs.

“Maybe because Seamus is dating Lee, he knew first, you know?” Harry squeezed Draco's hand and seemed to be pulling at it, like he wanted Draco to come closer.

Draco wrenched his hand free, instead.

“Seamus is great, I get it. I have to go. Goodnight!” He ran for the house, wishing Harry would vanish. Or maybe wishing Harry would yell for him. Or maybe wishing the earth would just swallow him.

He stared hard at his father’s scotch bottle that night, wondering if that was the way to get to sleep. He just couldn’t do it though. Instead, he spent the whole night tossing and turning and dreaming of Seamus on a broomstick, flying in, opening an oven and pulling Harry out of it all covered with icing sugar. And nothing else.

It wasn’t until halfway through the next afternoon that Draco managed to understand what Harry had been saying about Seamus. Who was dating _Lee_. Who was a _boy._

 _Just like Draco_.

He blushed so hard he thought he’d changed the temperature of something sensitive that he was attempting to brew. He threw it all away and _Apparated_ home to take a long walk alone in his own, purely ornamental, gardens.

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Harry opened Grimmauld’s front door to Draco, who wore a phoenix feather robe, which was on fire. Draco wrapped Harry in his arms and his third floor bedroom was so warm they had to take all their clothes off, and Harry’s nipples were burning – warm, so warm – so Draco kissed them and licked them and bit them and sucked them and kissed them again. Then Draco's lips were on fire – hotter now – and so was Harry’s cock so Draco put out the fire with his sensuous mouth and then Draco's cock was on fire so they were on the bed and the fire was so warm and Draco's cock was beyond enormous, which made Harry want it in his arse but when he opened his mouth to say so then it was in his mouth and Draco's mouth was still on him and he was sucking and licking and Draco's balls were so heavy and so hot and he wanted to caress Draco's cock and suck it hard and take it deep in his throat and he was a brilliant cocksucker even though he’d never sucked cock before. He hummed and kissed and sucked cock like an angel like a whore and Draco was so loud and it was delicious to hear the noises that Draco made because Harry pulled them out of him with his mouth and they were on fire together and it was so beautiful. Somehow when they both came it was like firehoses and all the fires went out and they were cuddling in the ashes and Harry woke up sticky and trying to figure out why dreaming about putting out fires had meant what seemed like gallons of come. 

He grimaced, grabbed his wand, cleaned himself and the sheets, and went back to sleep.

He didn’t go in the kitchen or garden much at all the next day, preferring to work on his well-dressing – and therefore hide from Draco in the attic – even though he felt weird and confused about why. It was like the answer was on the tip of his tongue, but no matter how often he thought about why he was too embarrassed to talk to Draco today, he couldn’t quite manage to remember what the reason might be.

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“I can’t thank you enough, Severus. The other week, when the children were here and Lucius drank so much anyway… that was such a low point. But then all the work you’d asked of him started to fire his mind, and somehow he just… snapped into place. He hasn’t had any alcohol in a week.” 

Snape: Narcissa, I am so glad. But he did it all himself. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own needs I’d barely realized how dependent he was becoming on his… nightcaps. I simply saw a need and thought he was the right man to fill it. I’m grateful if this fundraising work has helped in any way with this problem, but it is Lucius who has changed. I merely asked.

“Well,” Narcissa said – again out loud – she was most uninterested in communicating silently or leaving a parchment transcript for posterity, “perhaps your instincts are better than you realize. Perhaps I am merely lucky. Either way, you have done something that I believe no one else could have accomplished. You gave him a reason to be a man again, Severus. To be a Malfoy. For that I am deeply grateful. And so sorry that you feel you must move so terribly far away. Canada? Western Canada? We can’t _Apparate_ , we can’t even owl! Lucius and I have become so accustomed to having you at our table several nights a week. We shall miss you. I will write, of course, and I am sure Lucius will as well. But, Severus, the letters shall take an entire _day_ to arrive! It is positively barbaric, I can’t quite imagine it.”

She wanted to sigh. She smiled sadly and kindly instead. He patted her hand and they stood.

It might not be completely proper, but she was really going to miss him. He was the only real friend she and Lucius had left. She wondered if someone could offer _her_ meaningful, important work that would help their son.

They walked together in the sunlight for a while, in companionable silence. Then she incinerated his transcript herself, after he _Apparated_ home from her front gate.

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“Harry!” Draco burst out of the lab like a bludger from the strap. He ran up the stairs two at a time. “Harry! Where are you?” He ran into the kitchen. No Harry. He headed for the back door and, thank Merlin, there was Harry, up to his elbows in dirt. The lovely April sunshine – would that such weather would last – made his hair shine like jet. Draco admired Harry’s muscled arms even as he banged the back door open and ran into the garden, panting. 

“Harry! Harry! I’ve finally done it! I’m certain I have! The first step!”

Harry squinted up at Draco, smiling with happiness even though he couldn’t understand yet.

“You did? What did you do?” He stood and turned and he was filthy and Draco grabbed him and jumped up and down with Harry in his arms until Harry was laughing too hard and they fell into the dirt.

“My sea pink bed!” Harry yelped, but Draco knew he was joking.

“I’ve done it, Harry. We have to owl Hermione! We have to send Snape a letter, tell him to stop unpacking and come to the Floo and see! I’ve invented a recipe that gets _all_ the nasty crap off the broccoli!”

“Holy shit, Draco, really? That’s amazing! You’re amazing!”

Draco rolled onto his belly in the dirt, up on his elbows, not caring how filthy he could get in Harry’s rich topsoil. Harry rolled next to him, resting on his side, looking at Draco.

“It was the vinegar that did it. Such a simple thing.” He turned his head and looked at Harry, slightly nervous. “I know it is only a first step. But if we can get this formula to the Muggles, then, well, I guess someone will sell it and all the Muggles who buy it can have pesticide free fruit and veg. It doesn’t do anything about the genetically modified stuff, it doesn’t do anything for people who aren’t using it. But… maybe its existence will raise some awareness? And it should help lots of people eat safer food. I hope Hermione will have some idea how to get this formula into Muggle hands. That part I have no clue about.”

“Draco. Damn.” Harry’s eyes were soft and shining and Draco couldn’t quite look at them. “I can’t even tell you how impressed I am. That didn’t even take you a year.” He reached out and took Draco's hand in his own. Draco relished the feeling of Harry holding his hand. He closed his eyes against anything else. He was quite sure there would never be anything else.

So the lips on his were a surprise, but a welcome one.

“Oh…” Draco exhaled, and he rolled onto his back, inviting Harry to follow him. Hoping Harry would follow him.

Harry followed him.

Their lips moved together uncertainly, but Draco wanted to open himself to it nonetheless. He’d been so focused on just fitting in and doing well, for so long. Eighth year had been a case study in stiff politeness. Slytherins, teachers, other students: the whole school had walked around on eggshells all year and Draco had barely lifted his head from his books. Before that, well. Better not to remember or think at all about the two prior years.

There had never been any romance. There had never been any sex. There had never been anyone.

Until now.

Until all this whole damn year but who was counting and he’d hardly been willing to imagine Harry could be on the same path but Harry was nearly on top of him and Draco was _so hard right now_.

Draco shifted and felt something roughly cylindrical poking him in the backside. He felt his breathing go fast and shallow and moved away from it. _I am in charge,_ he told himself. _It’s really a tree root this time. Just a damn stick._ The sensation faded slowly but the actual object stayed right where it belonged and eventually Draco was able to concentrate wholly on kissing again.

 _Bloody fuck_ but kissing was the best thing on earth.

“Can I do more than kiss you?”

Draco's eyes flew open. They were on their sides now, in the dirt, face and face and front to front.

“What… what more?” Draco asked. He thought he sounded like an idiot but Harry beamed back at him like Draco was the smartest man on earth. Or possibly like he was the most delicious pudding.

Draco couldn’t help but grin at that, and Harry kissed him again. Harry reached for him, too. One hand at Draco's waist, other arm in the dirt, with a hand in Draco's hair now. Draco mirrored him and put his own left hand at Harry’s waist and his other went into Harry’s hair, which was soft and thick and something Draco wanted to never stop touching.

They were pulling at each other now, getting closer and closer, and suddenly, feeling terribly daring and also desperate to rub and feel and maybe even come, Draco rolled Harry onto his back and climbed on top of him.

“Yes,” Harry moaned. “More like _that_!”

Harry opened his legs and Draco settled in between them, kissing Harry harder, more passionately. He loved being on top even though his cock was pressing against Harry’s thigh because Harry was so much shorter. “Budge up,” Harry whispered, and they shoved and scootched and pushed and then Harry’s erection was _right underneath_ Draco's erection and it didn’t matter that they were wearing a whole damn store full of clothes _each_ because Harry was biting Draco's neck and grabbing his arse and they were frotting together like their lives depended on it and then Draco came.

He came like a firehose curse had been cast on his cock. He came like he was about to pass out. He came like the only thing in the universe was his cock.

He collapsed on Harry for a full three seconds before he wrenched his neck up and looked into Harry’s eyes in dismay. “Did you come, too?”

Harry grabbed Draco in a tight, hard hug and laughed so happily, rolling them back and forth in the dirt like puppies. “Nothing could have stopped me,” he raved. “Nothing! I’ve been wanting that, with you, for longer than I even _know_.”

Draco slid down so he was resting on the dirt. He pulled Harry in tight and kissed him once more. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“I mean,” Harry said, apparently suddenly too embarrassed to look Draco in the eye, “that I think I’ve been having thoughts about doing stuff like that, with you, since… damn, I don’t know? That first dinner party? But I was too stupid to figure out what the hell I wanted.”

“Me too,” Draco admitted. “I think I didn’t want to think about anything but work and pleasing father and getting Snape… well, away from me. But I don’t want to talk about that yet.”

“Okay, Harry agreed, looking solemn. “That’s okay. Because I have a great way to change the subject. I want to show you something really big, Draco. I think it’s so beautiful. I sort of… well, it’s basically for you. I hope you love it. But it’s really sort of huge.”

“I think it was a lot bigger a moment ago, don’t you?” Draco giggled and Harry paused, then he giggled too.

“No, you Hufflepuff, not _that_. That should happen later. After a bath!” Harry was blushing and it made Draco want to kiss him again. “No, this thing is in the attic.”

“The attic? Where you go to hide from me?” Draco tried to look indignant but he was sure he couldn’t have fooled anyone.

“No, not to hide from you! Look, just come up and see.” Harry stood up and pulled Draco up as well. They began to spell themselves and their clothing clean. “I want you to know, I can respect old pureblood traditions. I can be a part of your world.”

“Harry,” Draco said slowly, pausing in his attempt to charm a _lot_ of dirt out of the knees of his trousers. “You’re… _you_! how could you even _start_ to think…” he trailed off. He’d told Harry more than enough times himself that Harry was an inferior half-blood. He blushed with shame. “I’m sorry. I’ll just come up and see whatever you want to show me.”

They walked to the attic together and paused at the door. Harry sent two unlocking spells at the handle, then paused. “Tomorrow is May first,” he said solemnly. “This is my Beltane present to you and the pure-blood world.”

He unlocked the door with a last spell and opened the door slowly. Inside, a huge jar of bluebell flames hovered over a massive picture of Hogwarts in a wooden frame. Draco stepped closer. It was magnificent. There was a huge silvery-grey dragon on the lawn, and a massive golden-yellow griffin in the sky. Draco watched them but they didn’t move at all. Somehow, though, the picture gave the impression that they only had eyes for one another, or that they were playing a raucous game, or that they were somehow the very best of friends.

Hogwarts was a bit different, and Draco had to stare at it for a while to realize that Gryffindor tower had been moved to be right over the Slytherin dungeons and the view of the lake.

The whole thing made his heart soar. Harry had been working on this over-the-top artwork for _months_. He really had been pining for Draco for a long time. He felt a tension evaporate from between his shoulderblades and he felt himself beaming with happiness again. Harry was an _artist_! Who knew?

The longer Draco looked at the thing, the more he noticed what the picture was made of. Petals. Eggshells. Birch bark. Best of all, bits of peacock feather shining in the scales of the gorgeous silver dragon.

Draco reached out toward the peacock feather, then before he made contact, he stopped suddenly and looked at Harry. He wasn’t meant to _touch_ it, surely? It had to be ludicrously fragile? But that feather... it brought back such strong memories of their first walk together. The day they’d started to become comfortable in one another’s company.

Harry nodded, smiling, and Draco reached out with one tentative finger, stroking the silken threads of the feather. He pulled his finger away, nervous that he might damage the project Harry had poured so much time and thought into.

“It’s all… natural stuff, isn’t it,” he said almost silently, not asking so much as figuring it out as he spoke.

Harry was looking at him, half pleased, half confused. “Of _course_ it is! It’s a well-dressing! Aren’t you impressed? I told you, I can follow ancient pureblood traditions as well as any wizard!”

“Er,” Draco turned away from the magnificent picture so he could concentrate on Harry. “I’m sure you can, Harry, I’m quite sure you can. But… what does that have to do with this… ‘well-dressing,’ I think you called it?”

Harry looked completely crestfallen. He sat on a dusty trunk and looked at his feet.

“Er, everything? I thought. Luna said… oh Merlin, listen to me. _Luna_ told me this was a great old pureblood tradition that she learned about from her mum. And I knew Luna’s mum was a pureblood so I just…”

“Took her at her word?” Draco said quietly. Harry nodded miserably, still looking at the floor.

Draco felt awful. He knelt in the dust in front of Harry and tried to get Harry to look him in the eye. “Look, Harry… it isn’t a pureblood tradition I’ve heard of before, but… fuck. Who cares? Your well-dressing is _incredible_. It’s… fucking _gorgeous_. It should be put under heavy stasis enchantment and hung on a wall forever. I fucking love this. I could look at it every day!”

Harry looked up at that and smiled a little. “Yeah?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Draco agreed. He held a hand out to Harry, who took it and allowed Draco to pull him gently to his feet. Draco did not let go of Harry’s hand, but he pointed at the picture with his other hand and praised it as sincerely as he could. Luckily that was easy.

“And don’t think I didn’t notice,” he finally said, “how you’re using the whole thing to tell me that you want me.” He blushed, but Harry did too, so that was all right.

“Oh, yeah?” Harry said. “You can prove that?”

Draco did, but he first he pulled Harry down to the bedroom ensuite, where they got cleaner, then dirtier, then cleaner again.

Harry and Draco nearly slept through dinner that night.

Mum was very gracious about the sudden request for Draco to “spend the evening working in his lab.” He felt terrible about lying to his mum, but he wasn’t ready to tell her the truth yet, and he wasn’t ready to leave Harry’s house yet, either.

Kreacher fed them something simple and they ate quickly and retired immediately back to Harry’s bed.

If there had been a Beltane celebration they should have attended, well, they had more important things to do this night. Besides, this was traditional.

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“You feel confident that this plan will work,” Narcissa couldn’t help but ask Miss Granger one more time. They were in a Muggle park in London, near a huge “convention centre” Narcissa could not remember the name of for more than ten minutes. 

Miss Granger smiled politely at her. “I have complete confidence in you, Mrs Malfoy. I know you have Draco's formula memorized, I know that a good, well-qualified Muggle should be nearby. You’ll find someone perfect. And when you do, I know your _Legilimency_ skills are up to the task. Please, just go take a walk. I’ll be right here if you need me.”

Smiling with a confidence she was only trying to feel, Narcissa opened the parasol she’d insisted upon bringing. She knew she didn’t look much like a Muggle, but some barriers would not be crossed. Not this year anyway. Besides, she was pretty sure that a prop, especially a very pretty one, was likely to help. And it might help excuse any cultural mistakes she was to make, as well. Not to mention the very handy magnifying spell she’d hidden in one of the lace panels.

She meandered the park slowly, looking for someone extremely specific. A Muggle engineer, or a “food scientist” would be even better. Foreign was good, in case someone decided they were pushing the boundaries of the statute of secrecy, or even some other law. The park should be full of such people, here for the convention Miss Granger had researched. And though Miss Granger hadn’t said any such thing, Narcissa was hoping to find a woman. The idea pleased her.

She turned a corner on a lovely little path and saw a few benches. Most held one person, some held two. There was a woman under a tree, eating a sandwich with her left hand and tapping with her right on some sort of device with a shiny unreadable screen and a sort of typewriter-like keyboard. She wore navy blue, severely tailored and close to the body. A narrow little skirt, and hose, and court shoes. A white blouse of some sort peeked out from under her jacket. Her clothes looked alien to Narcissa, but nonetheless, Narcissa was quite sure, that was business attire. That was a woman forcing her way into a man’s world. This woman looked like a good first person to approach. If she wasn’t a food scientist, she probably managed a team of them.

Narcissa walked closer, but the woman didn’t seem to notice. “May I sit here?” Narcissa tried, and the woman looked up, startled, a large bite of sandwich distorting her face. Thankfully she answered nonverbally, waving Narcissa to join her. She moved an empty bag and sandwich wrapper and threw them neatly into a rubbish bin nearby.

The woman swallowed her large bite of sandwich as Narcissa sat down.

“Of course,” the woman said now. “Please do sit down. Are you a Londoner? I’m from America, in town for a convention. I love meeting British people! I’ve never been to England before. This city is beautiful! And all of your accents, too! I love hearing you all talk!”

“Thank you,” Narcissa said slowly. This woman was so voluble! But a promising candidate. “I’m from Wiltshire, out in the countryside. I’m just in London for the day.” Then Narcissa almost cringed at her mistake. It took her mere seconds to get to London from home. It took seconds to get _anywhere_. It obviously took Muggles far more time, but how much? She had no idea! She knew nothing of Muggle transportation. She didn’t even really know how far she was from home, not in miles. She probably lived _hours_ from London by automobile. She wondered if the woman would catch her in her error, but no, she smiled happily at Narcissa and jumped right back into the conversation.

“I live in the countryside myself! About an hour north of where I work, in Madison, Wisconsin. Have you heard of it?”

Narcissa shook her head ‘no,’ but her new companion didn’t miss a beat.

“I love it there. I went to college in Madison and then I got a job at Kraft. I’m a food scientist. I’m here for a big convention, over there.” She pointed behind her shoulder. “It’s so dull, though. My boss would kill me if he knew how many seminars and break-out sessions I’ve skipped in order to work on my laptop and meet people in the park.”

She laughed happily and Narcissa laughed softly along with her. This woman was positively mad! Narcissa liked her, she decided impulsively. She was relaxed, and happy, and made her own choices. “I’m Narcissa,” she said, and stuck out her hand.

“I’m Melody,” Melody said, and they shook hands.

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Epilogue: the following February 

Harry’s stated preference was to suck Draco's cock at least once every day. It fit perfectly in Harry’s mouth, that was for sure. Draco moaned and Harry released Draco's cockhead from the confines of his throat. Harry couldn’t do that for very long yet, but he was working on it. Draco was still in awe over his eighty different new shades of luck. Life was _brilliant_.

Harry slowly pulled his mouth off Draco's cock, shifting down the bed. “I’m getting the sheets damp, here.” He winked and Draco smirked back. They both knew what that meant. When Harry’s pre-come started really flowing it meant Harry was getting close to orgasm, and losing his control. He would want to climb on Draco's cock soon, or sixty-nine. Draco was in a fucking mood today, though.

“You want me to fuck you?” Draco said hopefully, looking down the bed as Harry’s mouth released, then kissed his cock.

“Damn right,” Harry said, and bounced up next to Draco, on his back, not too close to the wall, legs bent and up.

“Ooh…” Draco said, looking at Harry waiting. He climbed over Harry, cast a lubrication spell, and stuck two fingers in Harry’s arse.

“Ready from this morning,” Harry whined. “Just fuck me!”

“Mmm,” Draco agreed. He took his cock in hand and carefully found Harry’s hole, then Harry relaxed and Draco pushed and they both cried out with joy.

Draco was still getting used to Harry’s newfound love of getting pounded by Draco's cock. They’d been all about the slow and gentle for a long time. Having both essentially been complete virgins, slow and gentle had clearly been the best way to start – they were both in agreement about that.

But then, shortly before the new year, Harry had started to ask for more, and for harder, and for faster. Draco was working on his comfort levels with it, but it was obvious that the closer he followed Harry’s requests to damn near get smashed into the wall head-first, the louder and more vocal Harry got, the harder and faster he came, and the more he wanted to kiss and cuddle Draco after they fucked.

Still, after… some previous experiences that Draco did his level best to _never remember in any detail at all, ever_ , there were things Draco found psychologically challenging.

He was getting there with the arse pounding stuff, though. He readjusted his knees a bit and sped up his thrusts, and Harry out wailed a “Yes!” with power and pleasure. Harry had taken to leaving his cock alone for as long as he could stand it, and Draco noticed that it was this increase in speed that prompted Harry to grab for his cock and start pumping away.

He checked Harry’s face and saw that his red flush had deepened and spread almost to his nipples. Harry was going to come within moments; and if he thought it was all right with Draco he’d come even sooner.

Draco was also getting over the idea that the second Harry came he needed to pull his cock out. Harry had promised him, over and over, that he still liked getting fucked for long, luscious moments after he came. So Draco leaned closer and kissed Harry’s mouth, then leaned even further and bit Harry’s neck. “Come for me?” he asked, too self conscious still to look Harry in the eye when he said such a thing.

Harry didn’t seem to mind though, because somehow his hand sped up more, and then he started to come.

Damn, Harry could _come_. Draco looked down and watched, best as he could, at all the fluid erupting from his boyfriend’s cock. Seeing that drove him positively mad with lust. Every time. He whined and focused. “Grab my shoulders?” he asked, and Harry did, his mouth still open and his eyes shining.

Draco had learned that he found it exciting and sexy to be held onto like that. It felt like Harry was begging him not to stop. Draco came and collapsed onto Harry, who could always hold his weight, even though Draco was a foot taller. “Ten inches,” Harry would say when they drank enough ale. “You’re only _ten inches_ taller.”

“I’ll show you ten inches,” Draco would usually joke.

They tried not to drink much at all around Ron yet. He was still coming around.

They snuggled together and pulled up a blanket and fell asleep in the mess they had made.

*XxX*

It was after their nap that Harry broached a new subject. “I love bottoming, Draco. I don’t ever want you to doubt that. But….”

“You want to top sometime?” Draco started the sentence calmly; cool and mature. The word ‘top’ sounded like an owl’s squeaky toy nonetheless.

“You’re not ready,” Harry was obviously trying not to sound disappointed.

Draco couldn’t respond. He _wasn’t_ ready. Not yet. He felt like he would never be ready. Of course, he’d felt that way about telling his parents, about moving a few clothes and toiletries to Harry’s place, about telling Ron and Hermione, about letting Hermione tell Snape in one of the excruciatingly informative work updates she would send via trans-oceanic/trans-continental portkeymail….

Honestly, letting Hermione tell Snape had been the hardest. They’d all felt insurmountable once upon a time, though, and he’d managed every one of them, so…. “I’m not ready yet, no. But I wasn’t ready for lots of things, and I managed them. Can you be patient?”

Harry rolled over and tugged at Draco's shoulder till they were eye to eye on one pillow. “I can, Draco. But I think I need to hear where this fear came from. And I want you to know, that’s because you need to tell me, not because it isn’t really obvious.” He patted Draco's shoulder and rubbed his arm, but Draco felt his eyes widen in panic.

“Who told you?” he whispered. He felt his breathing speed up but he didn’t feel like he could do anything about it. He wished he had another blanket, it was freezing in here.

“No one told me Draco. Not with words. But you’ve been making it clear for ages, with the way you react to that man’s name. And please don’t forget your owl and elf team. They rescued you from him a few times.”

“With you,” Draco said sadly.

“Yeah,” Harry agreed. He was still rubbing Draco's shoulder. It felt very reassuring.

“And then you rescued me. You came when Doffy sent Peytral in a panic, and then you invited me to move my lab into your basement. And after that he never….” Draco stopped. He needed a shower. _Now_. Maybe Harry would let him get up, and….

“He never what, Draco? It’s time to tell me. I’ve been quiet for months, waiting for you to be ready. But he’s still in between us, and you have to shove him out of the way. Okay?”

Draco closed his eyes and put his face into Harry’s chest. “I… I can try,” he finally managed to say. Harry must have heard him, because he felt Harry nod.

“Snape, well… the first time he, uh… he…” Harry stroked Draco's back. Harry stayed silent, but he was waiting. Draco found the words and shoved at them until they emerged from his throat.

“First he said he knew I was a poofter. Then he pressed his, uh, his erection, uh, against my arse. But we were wearing all our clothes.”

Undemanding, Harry rubbed Draco’s shoulders and held him. He said nothing, just waited for Draco to continue at his own pace.

“The second time he pulled my robes up out of the way and he, uh… he rubbed himself on my trousers. He… he came on me. I felt it soak through my clothing before I could spell it away. It felt like… like burning. Then Doffy brought you in, and Snape vanished.”

Harry stayed silent. He rubbed Draco’s shoulders and said nothing. His silence was exactly what Draco needed right now. Somehow Harry wasn’t shocked, or disgusted with him. Part of him had known Harry would not be, but that part wasn’t very loud.

“Then, the third time, he was taking my trousers off, and rubbing his, uh, his erection, uh…. Against my… my skin.” Draco’s voice shook and quavered but Draco knew he could say this out loud. Not to anyone else, but he could say it to Harry. “And I felt him try to… he wanted… he wanted to fuck me, Harry.” Draco took another deep breath and felt some strength return to his voice.

“He never asked! He just… he was going to just take! And I didn’t, you have to believe, Harry…” Draco was shaking too hard to talk now. He wrapped his arms around his boyfriend and stuck his face in Harry’s neck and just willed his heart to stop pounding and his breathing to even out. Eventually, he got his control back, but there wasn’t much left to say.

Harry just waited through it with him, rubbing Draco's back and shoulders, saying nothing. There was no pressure at all and Draco tried to soak in Harry’s acceptance and patience.

Draco was so grateful that their naked chests were pressed so close, but also that there was a sheet between them from the waist or so down.

Draco took a deep breath and started again. “You stopped him, that third time. You stopped him before he… _raped_ me. He was going to… rape me. But before he could put himself into me, but… after he… he pulled my… my cheeks… he opened my cheeks up and I felt his cock there and then we heard you. We heard you and Doffy in the hall, coming in the door and Doffy yelling and then Snape… he waved his wand and all my clothes were back where they belonged and he was leaving the room before I really knew what had happened.

“And then we moved my lab here, into your house. And he never got me alone again, Harry. Not once. You saved me.”

Harry kissed Draco's head, then he pulled away gently. “And I’m going to save you again, Draco. Excuse me, please. I’ll be back in town soon.”

“What?” Draco asked, confused and wrung out like a used flannel.

Harry was putting on trousers even though he was still un-showered after all that sex. “I have to go to Vancouver and kill Snape.” He paused, put on a sock, and took a deep breath. “Or at least get him put in jail? I guess that would be more sensible. I might get caught if I murder him. It’s tempting, though.”

Harry’s face was grim. He stood, moving away from the bed, away from Draco. Draco felt cold again, and pulled the blankets around him like a shield.

Harry appeared to be looking for a shirt, or socks or something. He wasn’t looking at Draco at all. Even though he still felt cold, Draco sat up against the wall, pulling the sheets and blankets up under his arms. “Harry,” he said, half mortified, half amazed. “You absolutely cannot do that.”

“I’m sure I can get someone in Canada to listen to me, Draco. Please, don’t worry. I should be home really soon. You can stay here, of course!”

“No, Harry!” Draco felt panic creeping into his voice. “You _must not do that_! It would… it would kill my mother, for one thing!”

Harry sat on the bed with his second sock. He looked angry and confused. “Your mother? But she… I… that doesn’t…. How could your mother not want Snape dead too, when she hears?”

“My mother can never know about what Snape did to me, Harry. I forbid it. I forbid… _this_!"

Draco felt a need to lie down. This was horrible. He pulled at Harry until Harry lay over the blankets. They cuddled again and Draco tried to calm down.

“He humiliated me, Harry. He… I won’t let him humiliate my parents too. I don’t want anyone else to know what he did to me. I don’t want _anyone_ else, _ever_ , for as long as I live, to know what he did.” Draco finally started to cry. He felt like an idiot, but when Harry’s hands never stopped moving, it felt like a great release, too.

“You know,” Harry said very slowly, “that this _wasn’t your fault_?”

“Er,” Draco tried, his tears slowing to a trickle. “I sort of know that, in my head. Some of the time.”

“Well, it _isn’t_ ," Harry said emphatically, and Draco was grateful for it.

Draco reached for a handkerchief and blew his noise noisily. Harry waited, then took Draco into his arms again. Draco put his head on Harry’s chest and tried to explain.

“I need to just move forward now, Harry. Snape is far away. I should never have to see him again. I even encouraged Mum and Dad to go visit him there instead of having him come see them. Because it’s Snape the ministry will allow it, and he can pay them back for years of hospitality. And I don’t have to see him. Not ever again. And I will never, not _ever_ allow anyone to do something like that to me. Not ever again. I swear it.”

Harry rubbed Draco’s back through the blankets. He was still shirtless, in trousers and mismatched socks. “And the young men in Vancouver?” Harry asked, sounding tentative.

Draco looked at him, tipping his head at a funny angle so he could stay where he was and still see Harry’s eyes. “What?” he said, not following Harry’s logic at all.

“Don’t you think he might try to do this to someone else?” Harry said in the gentlest of voices. “I see how upset you are, and I don’t want to upset you further, not in any way. So I promise not to go to Vancouver, and I promise not to tell anyone this happened to you. But....” Harry stopped, apparently unable to finish his sentence.

Draco stayed silent too. It had never occurred to him that his situation with Snape might not be unique. He had thought, all this time, that Snape had mistaken him as a willing partner, an opportunity to seek solace with a familiar person, someone who had experienced similar, awful things during the war. What if that wasn’t it?

Harry rubbed Draco’s back and Draco put his face back in Harry’s neck and continued to consider this terrible new train of thought.

He had thought Snape had approached him because the war was finally over, because they were both gay and Slytherin and they both confused the general Wizarding populace. They were both somehow a hero _and_ hated: Snape far more than Draco.

Draco had believed for months that Snape was just... an interpersonal idiot, basically. There was ample evidence for it, after all. He’d been a fine spy, but when had anyone ever seen him be a friend? Harry and Hermione had talked plenty about how he was with Harry: whom Snape loathed simply as some sort of extension of his dead father James.

Draco had heard the Gryffindor trio talk and talk about how awful Snape was with Dumbledore, who had apparently loved him like a son. Yet Snape was nasty and nearly disrespectful when he spoke to Dumbledore, even in front of Harry and his friends. Yes, his actions were those of a deeply loyal soldier, or even a friend. But he’d spoken like a petulant teenager who was _always_ certain he was _always_ right.

So Draco had drifted between feeling horrified at what Snape had done, and feeling reassured that Snape had simply been stupid and Draco simply should have spoken up.

He’d been blaming himself for not yelling ‘No!’ and shutting Snape down. Because he’d thought Snape just wanted to love him and didn’t know how.

He’d convinced himself that if he’d ever been cornered again, he could stop Snape in his tracks, all by himself, just by speaking up.

What if Snape was worse than Draco had thought?

What if he was raping Canadian kids right now?

Draco shivered with horror and pain. He couldn’t tell anyone! But how could he not tell anyone?

“I don’t know what to do, Harry. I’d always thought it was just me. What if it wasn’t just me?”

“I have an idea,” Harry said, and squeezed Draco tightly. “Let’s write a letter. To the Canadian Aurors. We won’t tell them your name. Okay?”

Draco took a deep breath. He was pretty sure he could do that. If it were Harry’s magical signature on the paper, Harry’s words, Harry’s name saying these terrible things.

Because no matter how many Canadian kids they might save with that letter, Draco still wasn’t ready to go public. Not in any way.

“Yeah,” he said slowly. “I think... yeah. I’ll help you write it. Yeah.” He took another deep breath and felt a little better than he had in months. Harry was going to save him from himself again.

*XxX*

Canadian Auror Corp

Sexual Justice and Child Protective Division: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

To Whom it May Concern:

I am writing to inform you that I recently learned that Severus Snape, new resident of Vancouver, and a man I know well from Hogwarts and the Second Voldemort War, has a history of attempting rape.

I wish to assure you that, whatever my reputation may be in Canada, I am not acting without complete certainty in my facts. Severus Snape attempted to rape a close friend of mine, a man my age whom I trust without a single reservation.

I know this is a rather enormous thing to accuse someone of, but I wish to ask that you take it seriously anyway. I’m sure you aren’t allowed to arrest someone on the basis of one accusation. But I hope you can let that man know what he has been accused of and that you will be watching him. I hope that, Merlin forbid, should another young person accuse Snape of rape, attempted rape, etc., that you will believe that kid even though Snape is a big hero.

You may contact me if you need to, but I will not be able to tell you the name of the man in question. He’s not ready to go public. But, nonetheless, we couldn’t sit idly by and let Snape hurt anyone else.

Sincerely,

Harry Potter

Harry James Potter, Order of Merlin First Class

“Okay?” Harry asked, looking up from his desk. He was still shirtless, Draco was standing next to the desk, wrapped in blankets and sheets. Draco had known he needed to get that letter out to Canada right away, before he lost his nerve.

“It’s awful, Harry,” he laughed sadly. “I think you must have learned to write at Hogwarts. But send it. Send it right now. Before I change my mind.” Draco turned away from the desk and called for Kreacher, who popped in immediately.

Harry rolled up the scroll and handed it to Draco, who dropped it toward Kreacher as though it were on fire. Kreacher took the scroll from the air as it fell, and bowed.

“Kreacher,” Draco began, and took a deep breath. “Please get this to the Canadian Aurors in Vancouver as quickly as you can. And, well, I know you wouldn’t, but... please don’t read it.”

Kreacher looked up at Draco, ears suddenly tall, apparently shocked by such a request.

“Sir! Yes Master Draco, Sir.” He bowed and vanished.

Draco sat on the floor.

“It’s gone, Draco. You did something really big. And I’m really proud of you. I know that was hard.”

Draco just looked at Harry, exhausted. “Can we go back to bed?” he asked, feeling pathetic, but too tired to care.

“Of course,” Harry agreed.

They slept for hours.

The response from the Vancouver Aurors arrived only three days later.

*XxX*

Dear Mr. Potter,

Thank you for your letter. I write to assure you that we do take such accusations seriously here in British Columbia. We have approached Headmaster Snape and requested that he voluntarily register with our Protection Program.

I assure you that he was eager to protest his innocence and therefore quite willing to register into the protective spells that we have spread over our entire city and province. Here in Canada we take the protection of all witches and wizards very seriously. Minors and adults alike.

Therefore, beginning about twelve years ago, as soon as the charms and wards were perfected, we began blanketing Canada with monitoring spells that alert the Aurors whenever any registered person begins to commit certain types of unwanted or illegal conduct.

We have registered Headmaster Snape as an accused but not convicted sexual offender toward youth. The spells will alert the Headmaster and this department immediately should he try anything untoward with any Magical or non-Magical person or being.

We only regret that we are unable to protect Muggles from one another in this way. But witches and wizards in Canada are safe.

Please rest assured that Headmaster Snape understands these laws and the enforcement thereof.

Sincerely,

Bethelda Green

Bethelda Stripp-Green

Division Chief, Canadian Auror Corp

Sexual Justice and Child Protective Division: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada 

“Wow,” Harry breathed. They were standing in the garden together, enjoying the natural sunlight and the magical warmth of Harry’s greenhouse spells. Harry was holding the scroll open and Draco was reading it over his shoulder. Kreacher had vanished back into the house. “Wow!” Harry said again. “You want to hold it? I’ve read it twice now.”

“No,” Draco said, feeling stunned. “I’ve read it enough. Can we... can we _Incendio_ that?”

“Oh,” Harry said, clearly surprised. “Of course. You want to do it?”

“Er... Yes! Yes, I do,” Draco said, feeling stronger. “Put it down somewhere. You pick. I don’t want to hurt your garden.”

Harry looked around, carefully choosing a bare spot in the dirt, suitably far from the wooden fence.

“ _Incendio_ !” Draco cried, flourishing his wand, perhaps more dramatically than necessary. The little scroll burst into vivid flame and vanished into ash almost immediately.

“Draco,” Harry said, sounding truly impressed. “You did it!”

“It’s not hard to _Incendio_ paper, Harry,” Draco said dryly.

“ _No_ ,” Harry said, frustrated but smiling. “Not that! I mean you saved who knows how many Canadian kids! You did it! You’re brilliant!” Harry was grinning like a loon and Draco couldn’t understand it.

“What do you mean, Harry? You did that. You saved me and then you saved everyone else, like you always do. That’s... that’s what you do. You wrote the letter. You did the saving.”

“No, Draco. You’re the one who did it. You’re the one with the courage here. I don’t get that you can’t see that.” Harry stepped up to Draco and held out his arms. Pleased but uncertain, Draco stepped closer and Harry enfolded him tightly.

“Draco, all I did was listen. And write down the letter that you told me how to write. This is all you. You got away from him and then you told me what happened and then you made sure the Authorities there would watch him. And they are! And he won’t hurt anybody there. Not now! Because of you! I am so fucking proud of you.” He squeezed Draco again.

Draco took Harry’s hand and sat in the dirt, shocked. “That’s really how you see this,” he asked. “Seriously? You think... I’m the one?”

“Duh,” Harry laughed. “I really do! Of course. All I did was... be here. I’m glad I could be here. _Really_ glad. But you did it. You did everything important. Everything brave.”

Draco stared at Harry. Harry really believed this, it was clear from his face. He stared at Harry some more, but all Harry did as smile at him, pride all over him. It was weird.

It was terrific.

It was _arousing_.

“Take off your clothes?” Draco said, growling a little, knowing Harry responded to that.

Harry didn’t ask if he meant that they should get naked in the dirt. He simply started to strip and Draco followed quickly. Harry lay on his back as soon as he was fully nude, but Draco lay down facing the other way, and pulled Harry’s hips toward his face. “Suck me,” he growled playfully, then started to suck Harry’s cock in earnest, no teasing today.

Harry went right for Draco’s cock, caressing Draco’s balls, taking them into his mouth too, gently stretching out Draco’s scrotum the way Draco had learned to crave. Harry was still learning to deep throat Draco and every time he was able to open his throat for Draco, even for just a quick thrust or two, Draco would moan around Harry’s cock.

“I want to come like this,” Draco said, panting, diving right back into sucking.

“Ok,” Harry agreed enthusiastically. He usually knew to leave Draco’s arse alone, but today, after everything, he apparently thought it was a good day to try again.

Draco permitted a gentle caress, but when Harry tried to separate his cheeks he said, simply “Not today, Harry.”

Harry stopped immediately, reaching for Draco’s balls again and deep throating intently, with short breaks, until Draco came helplessly moments later. Harry came too, not long after Draco, with one of Draco’s fingers deep in his arse and his balls firmly in Draco’s caress.

“So…” Harry said. “No bottoming yet, huh?” Draco pulled his face up and looked at Harry, who was smiling kindly. They twisted around and Harry fell into Draco’s arms. Then Draco had to wriggle off a tree root that was poking him in the shoulder blade, but he was far too happy and sated to consider how filthy he had to be. Harry reached over and petted Draco's hair.

“I… maybe someday,” Draco finally decided. “Topping feels amazing. You should have a chance to try it. But not… not right now.”

“I can wait,” Harry said. “Thank you for telling me about why and agreeing to the letter, and everything. I still want to strangle him, but… I can try to let go of that. For you.”

“You go ahead and hate him,” Draco said with sudden determination. “Just remember not to embarrass me, or my poor parents. Okay? I don’t want anyone here to know what he did. Not Mum, not Hermione, not… not anyone.”

“I can accept that, Draco. I don’t like it, but I can accept it.” He cuddled closer. Draco pulled him in and put his nose into Harry’s warm hair.

Finally, after long minutes in the warm sun, Harry sighed. He sounded regretful and a little tired. “I really need a shower. Want to join me?”

“Yeah,” Draco said, feeling happier than he had in what felt like a year. “Yeah. I’d love to get clean with you.”

“It’s only fair,” Harry said, standing up and waiting for Draco to get up out of the dirt. “I’m pretty much always the one who gets you dirty.”

_Finite_

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*XxX*

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